The 13th leg of the round-the-world solar flight saw Solar Impulse 2 fly from Dayton, Ohio to Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. The 1,044-kilometre-long flight took pilot Bertrand Piccard 16 hours and 47 minutes at an average speed of 62.2 kilometres per hour. The airplane reached a maximum altitude of 4.5 kilometres.
Once the weather permits, André Borschberg will climb into the cockpit to pilot Solar Impulse 2 to New York City, said Solar Impulse in a statement. The metropolis on the east coast is the solar-powered airplane’s final destination in the US. Previous stops on US soil were Hawaii, San Francisco, Phoenix and Tulsa. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the historic journey is set to end in Abu Dhabi – back where it all began on 9 March 2015.
Solar Impulse had to interrupt its journey last summer because the batteries overheated on the record-breaking flight from Japan to Hawaii. It took longer than expected to replace the battery system, 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.
“Solar Impulse showcases that today exploration is no longer about conquering new territories, because even the moon has already been conquered, but about exploring new ways to have a better quality of life on earth,” commented Piccard, who is also honorary president of the swisscleantech business association, of the project’s goal. The solar-powered airplane demonstrates how modern clean technologies can achieve the impossible.