A solar powered airplane that developers hope will eventually be used all-around the world took off earlier today, May 3, from San Francisco Bay on the first leg of an attempt to fly across the United States with no fuel but the sun's energy.
The plane, called the Solar Impulse, left shortly after 6 a.m. local time from Moffett Field, a joint civil-military airport near south San Francisco.
The slow-speed flight is expected to take 15-20 hours according to Reuters.
The small looking plane barley made a sound as it took off as the sun was beginning to appear over the Santa Cruz Mountains.
After stops in Dallas, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. to wait for the weather to clear up, the flight team will conclude the plane's cross country trip in approximately two months at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.
Swiss pilots and co-founders of the project, Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, will take turns flying the plane, built with a single-seat cockpit, with Piccard at the controls for the first flight to Arizona.
The plane is scheduled to land in Phoenix at 1 a.m. local time on May 4 according to Reuters.
"I hope people understand the potential of this technology and use it on the ground," Borschberg, who flew for the Swiss Air Force for more than 20 years, told reporters as Piccard suited up for the flight nearby. "If we don't try to fly today using renewable energy, we never will."
The plan has been through a number of test runs and made its first intercontinental flight last summer from Spain to Morocco.
The plane has an ultra-light carbon-fiber frame that allows it to weigh 3,500 pounds, around the same as a mid-size car. It has the wingspan of a 747 and a slender fuselage.
The aircraft runs on about the same power as a motor scooter, propelled by energy collected from 12,000 solar cells built into the wings that recharge batteries with a storage capacity equivalent to a Tesla electric car according to Reuters.
The Solar Impulse can fly after the sun goes down on solar energy generated during daylight hours, and will become the first solar-powered aircraft capable of operating during the day and night without fuel to attempt a U.S. coast-to-coast flight.
The project began in 2003 with a 10-year budget of 90 million euros, or $112 million U.S. dollars, and has involved engineers from Swiss escalator maker Schindler and research aid from Belgian chemicals group Solvay.
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