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Swiss Duo Engineers Zero-fuel Airplane

Aviation specialists, apart Dassault, believed creating a zero-fuel airplane to be impossible. “Too big, too light and impossible to control in flight,” they told Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, who recently proved the challenge possible.

Aviation specialists, apart Dassault, believed creating a zero-fuel airplane to be impossible. “Too big, too light and impossible to control in flight,” they told Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, who recently proved the challenge possible.

Bertrand Piccard, a medical doctor, explorer and aeronaut, who made the first nonstop around-the-world balloon flight, initiated the project of Solar Impulse. André Borschberg, an engineer, fighter pilot and professional airplane and helicopter pilot, is the co-founder and CEO.

Solar Impulse 2 broke false beliefs when it ended its ’round-the-world flight in July 2016, consuming not a drop of fuel. Powered only by the sun’s energy, and piloted by the Swiss duo behind its creation, the Solar Impulse covered 40,000 km in 17 legs and 15 months; crossing Asia, the Pacific, the U.S., the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

The Solar Impulse 2 is not the first solar airplane, but it is the first to fly day and night, without any fuel, only using energy stored in its batteries, and the first to have crossed oceans. The largest aircraft ever built with such low weight, it has the wingspan of a Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, weighs roughly the same as a family car and has the power of a small motorcycle.

Read more about the journey and technical details in ArchiExpo e-Magazine’s latest issue.

Details

  • Marseille, France
  • ArchiExpo