The sun-powered airplane Solar Impulse 2 successfully completed its maiden flight on Monday in Switzerland, one year before its planned trip around the world, the project team said.
The project’s Swiss initiators, the pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, plan the first solar-powered circumnavigation of the earth, after having crossed North America with the airplane’s previous model last year.
Piccard, Borschberg and other pilots are planning to make the trip starting in March 2015 in numerous legs.
The four-propeller airplane has a wingspan of 72 metres, which makes it wider than a jumbo jet. It weighs only 2.3 tonnes.