Solar Impulse lands in Pennsylvania on record-breaking flight

Washington, May 26: The sun-powered Solar Impulse 2 aircraft has landed in the US state of Pennsylvania, completing the latest leg of a record-breaking flight around the world to promote renewable energy.

After taking off from Dayton, Ohio early yesterday, the plane piloted by Swiss explorer Bertrand Piccard arrived at 8:49 pm (0049 GMT Thursday) at Lehigh Valley International Airport after a flight that lasted just under 17 hours.

On its next stage to New York's JFK airport, scheduled for after May 30, Solar Impulse is expected to pass over the Statue of Liberty for a much-anticipated photo opportunity before landing at one of the world's busiest airports.

"The mood is extraordinary," Andre Borschberg, the plane's alternate pilot, said on the ground just as Piccard prepared to land.

"We are close to New York!" The slow-moving, single-seat plane with the massive wingspan of a Boeing 747 has traversed much of the globe in stages since taking off March 9, 2015 from Abu Dhabi, with Piccard and Borschberg, a Swiss businessman, alternating in the cockpit.

The aircraft, clad in thousands of solar cells, was scheduled to depart Ohio on Tuesday but the flight was postponed after its inflatable mobile hangar was damaged when the air fans holding up the structure temporarily failed.

However, the plane's performance on Wednesday was "like it should be" Borschberg said.

"It's a fantastic airplane." The flight to Lehigh Valley was the 13th leg of Solar Impulse's projected 16-leg east-west circumnavigation, traveling at average speeds of a mere (30 miles) 48 kilometres per hour. "Fantastic moment," Picard tweeted from the cockpit at one point during the flight.

"I just got in touch with Air Traffic Control of New York Center. We've crossed the USA!!!!!"

"The flight is part of the attempt to achieve the first ever Round-The-World Solar Flight, the goal of which is to demonstrate how modern clean technologies can achieve the impossible," Piccard and Borschberg said in a statement.

It hasn't all been smooth sailing, however. The aircraft was grounded in July when its batteries were damaged halfway through its 21,700-mile (35,000-kilometre) circumnavigation of the globe.

The crew took several months to repair the damage caused by high tropical temperatures during a 4,000-mile flight between Nagoya, Japan and Hawaii.

The plane was flown on that stage by Borschberg, whose 118-hour journey smashed the previous record of 76 hours and 45 minutes set by US adventurer Steve Fossett in 2006.

AFP