An effort to fly a solar-powered plane 20,000 miles around the world began Monday when the Solar Impulse 2 took off from Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and landed in Muscat, Oman.
The relatively short jaunt -- just 250 miles (400km) east -- is the first leg of a planned 12-stop global circumnavigation, the first by a solar aircraft. The longest segments will be five-day trips over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Those will be the most serious test of the plane's design, which gathers energy from solar cells, then stores it in batteries for overnight flying in the dark.
The plane landed at about 9:15 a.m. PT after the journey was extended to about 13 hours to let winds subside. After a preflight hiccup, the project reported no problems with Solar Impulse 2 -- but its accompanying chase plane had technical difficulties, and the Web site went offline, too.
Feats of aviation derring-do are as old as the aviation industry, including the Montgolfier brothers' hot-air balloons in the 18th century and Chuck Yeager's breaking of the sound barrier in 1947. Such efforts, while risky and sometimes fatal, often serve to advance the state of the art.
In the case of the Solar Impulse, project leaders and pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg want to show what can be done with an environmentally friendly plane. The solar-powered craft doesn't emit carbon dioxide, the major culprit in global warming, in contrast to conventional jets.
There was a technical hiccup Monday with part of the plane's electrical system, but engineers took care of the issue and the flight went ahead. The team's next leg leads to Ahmedabad, India, and if successful will be the longest distance a solar plane has yet traveled, according to the project.
