Update on SOLAR IMPULSE

Solar plane on cross-country trek

The Solar Impulse solar plane landed in St.Louis early Tuesday, completing the third leg of a planned five-flight trek from San Francisco to New York.

After taking off Monday morning from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the aircraft landed in St. Louis after a flight of 21 hours and 21 minutes, its longest flight to date.

After the landing the Swiss-built aircraft was moved to an inflatable hangar originally designed for a planned round-the-world flight, but brought into action after a storm caused heavy damage to the airport hangar originally reserved for Solar Impulse.

The inflatable hangar was brought in to the USA for testing purposes and in fact it allowed the mission to stay on schedule. This exercise is now a proof of concept: rather than taking the airplane to a hangar, the hangar has been taken to the airplane.

Two men, both pioneers and innovators, both pilots, are the driving force behind Solar Impulse.

• Bertrand Piccard, doctor, psychiatrist and aeronaut, who made the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, is the initiator and chairman.
•  André Borschberg, an engineer and graduate in management science, a fighter pilot and a professional airplane and helicopter pilot, is the co-founder and CEO.

The first leg, beginning May 3 and piloted by Piccard, started from NASA's Moffett Field in the San Francisco Bay Area and ended in Phoenix; a Phoenix-to-Dallas flight with Borschberg at the controls began May 22.

The long flight times of each leg meant Solar Impulse had to fly through the night; 12,000 solar cells built into the wing use sunlight to charge the batteries for night flight.

A fourth flight will see the plane land in Washington, D.C., this month, while the final leg will end at JFK Airport in New York in early July.

You can follow the excitement of this fantastic voyage on the web at:

www.solarimpulse.com