The airplane will be piloted by Betrand Piccard, Solar Impulse co-founder and honourary president of swisscleantech. According to an update on the website, the team has found a window of clear weather: the airplane will take off from Kalaeloa airport in Hawaii at 17:00 Swiss time. Its destination is Moffet Airfield in Mountain View, California.
Solar Impulse had to interrupt its round-the-world flight in July 2015 because the batteries overheated. It took longer than expected to replace the battery season, and the airplane had to remain grounded in Hawaii over the winter months when the hours of sunshine in the northern Hemisphere are at their lowest.
After the flight reaches California, it will fly to New York and from there in the direction of Europe or North Africa before concluding its world solar adventure in Abu Dhabi.
“The primary purpose of this adventure is to demonstrate that modern clean technologies can achieve the impossible and encourage everyone to use these same energy efficient solutions on the ground in their daily lives for mobility, construction, lighting, heating, cooling and more,” said Piccard of the project’s goal.