Developers in Switzerland have formally unveiled the prototype 'Solar Impulse' experimental solar-powered aircraft which eventually will attempt a round-the-world non-stop flight.
The four-engined aircraft, which has a 63.4m (208ft) wing span but weighs just 1,600kg, was revealed at a ceremony at Dubendorf Airfield today, six years after work began on the programme.
Among the aims of the aircraft - which draws its power from 11,628 silicon cells - is to perform a 36hr endurance flight, including night-flying, before the team embarks on more ambitious tasks.
A second aircraft is planned for 2011 - which, unlike the first, will have a pressurised cockpit - as the researchers bid to make crossings of the USA and the Atlantic, and eventually try to circumnavigate the globe.
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Speaking during the unveiling today, aviation pioneer Bertrand Piccard, one of the project's directors, said: "Yesterday it was a dream. Today it's an aeroplane, and tomorrow it will be an ambassador of renewable energies and energy savings - flying day and night with no fuel and no pollution."
Solar Impulse has been guided by Andre Borschberg, who stated today: "Six years ago, when we launched the project, we were facing so many challenges, so many uncertainties, that we could not dare to think of a moment like this one."
Present at the unveiling today was IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani, who described the ceremony as a "great, great event" which "shows to the world that carbon-free flight is possible".
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Source: Flight International
