Solar plane on last leg of world tour

Solar Impulse 2, a single-seat plane, took off from Cairo in darkness en route to Abu Dhabi, its final destination.

The flight is expected to take between 48 and 72 hours.

The plane, which started in Abu Dhabi in March 2015, has been piloted in turns by Swiss aviators Andre Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard.

“The round the world flight ends in Abu Dhabi, but not the project,” Mr Piccard told Reuters a few days before take-off.

Solar Impulse flies without a drop of fuel, its four engines powered by energy collected from more than 17,000 solar cells in its wings.

It relies on solar energy collected during the day and stored in batteries for electrical energy to fly at night.

The carbon fibre plane has a wingspan exceeding that of a Boeing 747.

It weighs roughly the same as a family car and can climb to about 8,500m (28,000ft) and cruise at 34-62 mph.

“The project is a big promotion of clean technologies around the world and the legacy of Solar Impulse is the created international community,” Mr Piccard said.

Last week, the solar-powered aircraft landed in Egypt for its penultimate stop.

The flight’s take-off from Egypt to the United Arab Emirates was delayed due to a heatwave in Saudi Arabia.

“I started to dream about this project 17 years ago in 1999 when I finished my hot-air balloon landing in Egypt, so 17 years later I take off where the balloon landed,” Mr Piccard said. –news.sky.com

Follow us on Twitter @FingazLive and on Facebook – The Financial Gazette