Selfie sticks have been banned in many public spaces, but Solar Impulse pilot Bertrand Piccard clearly likes the idea – catching this snap of himself piloting the solar-only aircraft over 1,344km and 17hr 22min from Chongqing to Nanjing, the sixth leg of a 12-hop round-the-world adventure that began in Abu Dhabi on 9 March.
Bertrand Piccard, en route to Nanjing
Bertrand Piccard/Solar Impulse
Piccard and the support team will now be recharging their batteries before setting off for Hawaii – a crossing that could take up to six days. Piccard and his partner in the venture, André Borschberg, are taking turns at the controls of the single seater, which has the wingspan of a 747 but the mass of a small car and needs only the power equivalent of a motor scooter to fly day and night, relying on exotic materials and super-efficient solar panels and electric motors. The trick is to set off with as much power in the batteries as possible, charging during the day and then gradually losing altitude at night before the charging cycle resumes with sunrise.
The Swiss duo have spent more than a decade on the Solar Impulse project. Both are accomplished aviators, but they stress that the project is not about aviation – it is about energy, specifically about showing people that the world's formidable environmental challenges can be solved with technologies that are available today.
As such, they are spending their time on the ground between legs meeting with schools, governments and other agencies to discuss their experience. In the event, they had plenty of time on the ground in Chongqing, where a stay planned to be as short as three days ended up lasting 20, owing to unsuitable weather for the run to Nanjing.
The flight is also hugely demanding of the pilot's fitness. Piccard, a medical doctor, has developed diet, exercise, self-hypnosis and micro-napping techniques to extend endurance. But ordinary medical issues can also interfere. Borschberg was to have flown the Chongqing-Nanjing leg, but had to defer to Piccard in order to return home to Switzerland for treatment of migraine symptoms and shingles. He is, however, expecting to make the Nanjing-Hawaii run, the date of which is yet to be determined.
From Hawaii, Solar Impulse will fly on to Phoenix, Arizona, then to a mid-US destination, New York, and Europe or Africa before a final jaunt back to Abu Dhabi. The long weather delay in Chongqing threw the schedule to the wind, so at this point it seems certain that the original earliest-possible arrival date back in Abu Dhabi – 16 May – is off the radar.
Take off from Chongqing Jiangbei International airport
Solar Impulse
Source: FlightGlobal.com
