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Solar Impulse
The Solar Impulse airplane takes off from Phoenix for Dallas-Fort Worth on Wednesday.
The Swiss-made Solar Impulse plane went after a distance record for solar-powered flight on Wednesday as it sailed from Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth, on the second leg of its coast-to-coast odyssey across America.
The super-light, super-wide plane rose from its runway at Phoenix's Sky Harbor International Airport at 4:47 a.m. MST (7:47 a.m. ET) with Andre Borschberg, Solar Impulse's co-founder and CEO, at the controls. He guided the plane through Arizona, New Mexico and West Texas, conducting a string of interviews from the air.
"It's flying very well," Borschberg told NBC News a couple of hours after takeoff.
Although the cockpit had room for only one flier, many more people were looking over his shoulder, thanks to a live video link. "They're all with me virtually," Borschberg said.
Flight controllers said the plane was making such good time that Borschberg would have to fly in a holding pattern before landing at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The latest word was that touchdown might come earlier than scheduled, perhaps before midnight CT (1 a.m. ET Thursday).
That would make for a 17-hour flight, which wouldn't break any speed records.You could drive between Phoenix and Dallas in less time, and most commercial jets make the trip in two hours. But the 830-mile trek would break the distance record for a single solar-powered flight. Borschberg set the current record, 693 miles (1,116 kilometers), a year ago during a Solar Impulse flight from Switzerland to Spain.
The Solar Impulse project began in 2003 with a 10-year budget of 90 million euros ($115 million), backed by Swiss sponsors. The plane is designed to demonstrate a host of clean-energy technologies, ranging from lightweight carbon composites to the 12,000-solar-cell system that powers the plane. The airplane is as light as a typical passenger car, but its wingspan matches the width of a jumbo jet.
On Wednesday, the plane ranged as high in altitude as 27,000 feet, soaking up the sun's energy as it went. "The more I fly, the more energy I have aboard the airplane," Borschberg said.
In addition to the technical challenges, mission planners had to coordinate their itinerary with the Federal Aviation Administration and airport authorities to avoid conflicting with regular air traffic. "It's not easy," Borschberg admitted.
Famed adventurer Bertrand Piccard piloted the plane on the first leg of its cross-country journey on May 3, from Moffett Field in the San Francisco Bay Area to Phoenix. Piccard and Borschberg are taking turns in the cockpit as Solar Impulse makes its way eastward. After Dallas-Fort Worth, the plane is scheduled to move on to St. Louis, and then to Washington, D.C. The final leg of the trip, from Washington to New York, is expected to come sometime around the Fourth of July.
Updates on Wednesday's flight are being provided via Solar Impulse's website and its Twitter account (@solarimpulse).
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