Solar Impulse 2 flying at night.
The Solar Impulse Plane has been flying around the world using nothing but electric power generated by the sun and stored in batteries. The plane flies at around eight thousand feet and moves at about
29 knots as it travels.
André Borschberg, one of two pilots who take turns flying legs of the attempt to set a new solar flight record, took off in the wee hours of Monday morning (Nagoya time). He's not scheduled to land again until Friday morning (Eastern time).
The Solar Impulse left Nagoya after at least two other takeoffs were canceled over concerns about bad weather in the flight plan. The plane's window for taking off is fairly small. Given its large size and delicate structure, the Solar Impulse generally takes off from airports late at night, during cool and calm conditions.
After months of being grounded due to inclement weather conditions, the 120 hour flight across the pacific is no small feat. Borschberg will be in the plane for 5 days and 5 nights and is at the
"point of no return" in his flight over the Pacific:
The pilot now no longer has the option to turn around and return to Japan, if the weather forecast changes.
It's an exciting trip with all kinds of positive potentials for our aviation future. But the trip has not been an easy one.
Swiss pilot and Solar Impulse co-founder Andre Borschberg, who is flying the experimental single-seater craft, was initially supposed to begin his journey to Hawaii from Nanjing in China.
But he spent weeks there, with his ground-support team, waiting for the right flying conditions to present themselves.
He finally took off on the 31 May, but a deterioration in the forecast a few hours into the mission meant that he had to divert to Japan.
You can track the plane's progress on their website
here, and you can watch the live feed below the fold.