Propelled by the sun around the world

A mission to highlight human innovation and new technologies has launched two Swiss pilots on a flight around the world in a totally solar-powered plane.

On Monday, André Borschberg, 62, flew the Si2 on its inaugural leg from Abu Dhabi, the capital of United Arab Emirates, to nearby Oman. Bertrand Piccard, 57, co-founder of Solar Impulse, the company that built the plane, took the controls for an epic second flight 910 miles across the Arabian Sea to Ahmadabad, India.

Piccard, a psychiatrist, and Borschberg, an entrepreneur and CEO of Solar Impulse, will take turns in the pilot’s seat for each leg, soaring at a modest 25 knots (28 mph) to cover 21,700 miles around the globe. The sun-powered craft will stop in 12 cities during a journey that will take about five months.

But the two pilots hope to accomplish an actual flight time of just 25 days over the five-month period.

The duo say their journey is a “strong message for clean technologies,” an entrepreneurial feat of daring in a conversation too often reduced to a cry for taxing and penalizing fossil-fuel users. The wingspan of the Swiss-built Si2 is as big as a Boeing 747’s, but it’s girded with panels containing 17,248 ultra-efficient solar cells.

In order to capture public imagination and emphasize what can be done with “clean” technology, the pilots have planned publicity events for governments, schools, and universities along their route. From Ahmedabad, the team will fly to another Indian city, then to Burma, and onwards to Chongqing and Nanjing in China.

The pair hope to cross the Pacific and make landfall in Hawaii. Their U.S. flyover will include stops in Phoenix and New York City, where the plane will start its Atlantic crossing. Then the team will either touch down in southern Europe or Morocco before returning to the starting line in Abu Dhabi.

The first big challenge Piccard and Borschberg will face is to make it across Asia before the start of the pounding monsoon rains. Then their physical and mental endurance will be tested as they fly over the oceans. Each ocean leg will require five days and five nights of flying alone. In order to survive the crossing in cramped, monotonous conditions, the pilots hope mental gymnastics will suffice: Borschberg has been practicing yoga and Piccard will use self-hypnosis. Instead of a night’s sleep, they each aim to take a series of 20 minute naps, 12 total during a 24-hour period. Their flight goggles are programmed to flash lights to awaken them.

Though the cockpit has no room to stand, the single seat reclines and the removable seat cushion hides access to a waterless toilet. To keep them on the straight and level, the pilots have armbands placed underneath their flight suits which will buzz if the plane isn’t flying right. With no cabin pressurization, temperatures will range from -40 degrees Fahrenheit to 104 degrees Fahrenheit.

Piccard is no newcomer to flight and hails from a family of adventurers: He is the son of undersea explorer Jacques Piccard and the grandson of hot-air balloonist Auguste Piccard. In 1999, he made history as the first person to circumnavigate the globe nonstop in a hot-air balloon.

Even if their flight is a success, not many solar-powered planes will be whizzing around any time soon, Piccard acknowledged.

“Not everybody will be able fly in a plane like this,” he said. “But everyone can use the technologies to have electrical cars, solar heating, and lighting in their homes. People can choose new cleaner technologies instead of the old polluting ones.”

The Si2 project began in 2002 and may cost more than $100 million. The pilots hope to influence political opinion ahead of the United Nation’s controversial Conference on Climate Change. The meeting will define the new Kyoto protocol standards this December in Paris.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.