Solar-powered plane lands in Ohio
May 22, 2016
Solar Impulse 2 landed in Dayton, Ohio, late on Saturday local time, for the latest stage of its globe-spanning trip that began last year in the Middle East.
The plane, which is completely solar-powered, took off from Tulsa, Oklahoma, earlier Saturday. The 12th leg of the journey took 17 hours.
The operators and makers of the plane, Swiss pilots Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, said they wanted to achieve the first-ever round-the-world solar flight in order to demonstrate the power of clean technologies.
Made up of 17,000 solar-cells, which power the plane's propellers and charge its batteries, the Solar Impulse 2 ideally travels at a speed of 45 kmh (28 mph).
Piccard and Borschberg began the flight in March 2015 from the United Arab Emirates. The plane has travelled through much of Asia, including India, Myanmar, China and Japan.
blc/jm (AFP, AP)