“Goodbye, Dayton,” Piccard said with a final wave just before climbing into the cockpit. “Thank you for your welcome.”
Sporting a wingspan longer than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet and weighing about what an SUV does, the plane landed in Dayton on Saturday, more than 15,000 miles into a global trek that began in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, over a year ago.
The solar plane was expected to fly around the Statute of Liberty in New York Harbor next week and cross the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.
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VIDEO: Watch solar plane land in Dayton
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“It is safe, but it is difficult to make it happen,” Piccard said in an interview Tuesday. “So many problems can come here and there and break the machine.”
The round-the-world journey began over a year ago in Abu Dhabi, the same place it could end this summer.
Piccard and fellow Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg, who flew the single-seat plane to Dayton from Tulsa, Okla., on Saturday, have alternated piloting the propeller-powered aircraft with a wingspan greater than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet and weighing about as much as a typical SUV.
When part of the inflatable hangar on the Dayton airport’s tarmac collapsed, Borschberg was concerned. A circuit breaker tied to fans that keep the hangar inflated overheated in the sun and caused a failure that lasted about two and half minutes, according to the flight team.
“I think we were a few seconds of losing the airplane,” Borschberg said. “And very often in this project we’ve been facing critical moments despite all the efforts that you make to try and and anticipate anything that can go wrong.”
In the days ahead, the duo hopes to fly Solar Impulse 2 around the Statute of Liberty in New York and cross the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. “That will be an iconic moment for our project,” said Piccard, who had vision for the solar-powered plane and hails from a family of past pioneering explorers.
For Borschberg, flying to Dayton was “very meaningful.” He noted he landed in the Gem City on the 89th anniversary of Charles Lindbergh’s solo flight across the Atlantic in the airplane dubbed the Spirit of St. Louis, a city Borschberg flew over to arrive in Dayton.
Covered with more than 17,000 solar cells, Solar Impulse is powered by solar energy without any liquid fuel or emissions. Solar energy charges batteries to power four electric engines. The plane taps into batteries to fly for hours in darkness.
“Flying day and night with no fuel is considered to be impossible and we do it because we have an energy-efficient plane, Piccard said.
An array of lights on the wing light up at night. “With all the landing lights, it’s like a UFO taking off very slowly, quietly, with no noise,” Piccard said.
Solar Impulse’s slow speed, usually flying between 30 to 50 mph, may seem impractical to some, but the future of the technology could bring change, said Dayton Airport Director Terry Slaybaugh.
“It really makes me think about the Wright brothers and the skepticism they faced when they first began their flights,” he said. “Many people thought it was not practical and would not become anything.”
While in Dayton on Sunday, the two Swiss pilots toured Carillon Historical Park and Hawthorn Hill, the Oakwood mansion of Orville Wright.
Borschberg and Piccard got into the “pit,” or display area of the 1905 Wright Flyer III at Carillon. Wilbur and Orville Wright flew the biplane in tests at Huffman Prairie Flying Field in the fall of 1905, perfecting what’s considered the world’s first practical airplane.
The Swiss pilots on a modern day pioneering journey “were absolutely fascinated by it,” said Amanda Lane Wright, the grandniece of the Wright brothers. She and her brother, Stephen, accompanied the Solar Impulse duo to the park.
“There were so many similarities to what they’re doing to exactly what the Wrights were doing,” Lane said.
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