Solar Impulse 2 lands in China
Date
3/31/2015 11:31:16 PM
(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The revolutionary plane landed in Chongqing airport at 1.35am (1735 GMT Monday) after a 20-and-a-half hour flight from Myanmar.
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Shanghai — Solar Impulse 2 landed early Tuesday in China the world’s biggest carbon emitter completing the fifth leg of its landmark global circumnavigation powered solely by the sun.
With pilot Bertrand Piccard at the controls the revolutionary plane landed in Chongqing airport at 1.35am (1735 GMT Monday) after a 20-and-a-half hour flight from Myanmar its vast wingspan lit up by rows of lights.
The plane had been expected to make just a brief stop in the southwestern city and quickly travel on to Nanjing about 270 kilometres from Shanghai but that was delayed due to weather and safety concerns with the team now expecting to stay a few days waiting for better conditions for the trip east.
“We are tired but we are still very very happy to be in Chongqing” said mission engineer Michael Anger on the project’s website.
“In China it was demanding this flight especially for Bertrand and also for the team preparing two flights in a row and then this afternoon cancelling the second flight due to bad weather in Nanjing.”
Piccard one of the two Swiss pilots of the solar-powered plane battled extreme cold as low as -20 degrees Celsius (-4 Fahrenheit) in the cockpit and the general unpredictabilities of flying above the mountainous Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan.
Flying at high altitude for most of the journey from Mandalay to Chongqing — 28000 feet at its highest point — Piccard had to use additional oxygen on the 1459-kilometre route.
The flight was the most difficult of the trip so far Raymond Clerc flight director for Solar Impulse said in a video interview on the project’s website.
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