The fuel free plane “Impulse” made history when it completed its second flight and attempt to fly around the world.
Bertrand Piccard, the founder of the project was piloting the plane from Oman to India. The solar plane crossed the Arabian sea and landed successfully in Ahmedabad India. The total distance covered was 1,468km in 15 hours. This is a world record for a solar powered plane.
In the next 10 months, the plane will be tested and trialed for further improvements. The stretches that this plane will pass include the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The solar plane landed in India during nighttime with its wings flashing with LEDS and its engine running with the power that was inside its batteries.
Now the team is preparing to take on bigger challenges as they plan to fly to northeast India but it will take at least four days for the crew to prepare the plane for its flight.
The team has decided to utilize this free time to start campaign for clean energy in India, this may attract investors and may change the mindset of people to start accepting the possibility of clean energy taking over fossil fuel.
At the moment the “around the world” is at hold because a bigger plane will be needed to achieve that goal. The team has already named this next prototype – Solar Impulse-1. The new plane will be bigger than the current version and will have a wing span of 72m, though it only weighs 2.3 tons but the wing span is bigger than a jumbo jet.