BASEL – A sun-powered airplane, Solar Impulse 2, on Monday completed its maiden flight in Switzerland for world round-trip.
The project initiator and one of the co-pilots, Bertrand Piccard, said the flight came one year before its planned trip around the world.
Borschberg, another pilot, said they were planning with other pilots to make a global trip starting in March 2015 `in numerous legs.’
He said the four-propeller airplane had a wingspan of 72 metres, which makes it wider than a jumbo jet and it weighed 2.3 tones.
Borschberg said he and the other Swiss initiator Piccard planned the first solar-powered circumnavigation of the earth, after having crossed North America with the airplane’s previous model last year. (dpa/NAN