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Feature: Dream comes true for solar plane to complete clean flight

Xinhua, July 26, 2016 Adjust font size:

The solar-energy powered plane, Solar Impulse 2 (SI2), landed Tuesday morning at Al-Bateen Airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital of Abu Dhabi, completing the aircraft' global tour.

The plane, developed and flown by Swiss co-founder and adventurer Bertrand Piccard, arrived at Abu Dhabi at 4:02 a.m. local time (GMT0002) on Tuesday after about 48 hours flying from the previous stop of Egypt's capital of Cairo.

Upon arrival, Piccard was greeted by UAE Minister of State Sultan Al-Jaber, who is also Chairman of Abu Dhabi-government controlled environmental investment and research firm Masdar, Swiss Vice President Doris Leuthard, and Prince Albert II of Monaco.

Piccard and co-founder and partner Andre Borschberg changed as pilot from trip to trip as SI2 has only one pilot seat.

"Andre Borschberg and myself waited for this moment for 15 years," Piccard said in his first address after landing. "We flew 40,000 km. It is now up to everyone to change the world by using renewable energy. The future is clean," he added.

During the 16-month-long world tour, which also started in Abu Dhabi on March 9 2015, the SI2 made stops in Oman, India, Myanmar, China, U.S., as well as some European and African countries.

The Swiss explorer urged the public not to accept the world record as granted, but to "take it further. Who thought history of aviation would once reach the point when a plane can circumvent the globe without fuel? Let us all be pioneers and embrace clean energy wherever possible," said Piccard.

Piccard and Borschberg, thanked the UAE and Monaco, where the SI2 main control center is based, for their support to lead the SI2 to a success.

Swiss Vice President praised the two explorers who were dressed in orange pilot overalls as Switzerland's new pride and thanked the entire SI2 team with a total of 150 members for their hard work.

Piccard is the son of undersea explorer Jacques Piccard, who was one of the two first to explore the deepest part of the world's ocean and the deepest location on the surface of Earth's crust, the Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific Ocean.

Piccard's grandfather, Auguste Piccard, broke the altitude world record with a balloon in 1931, reaching 15,781 meters during his flight.

"During his last flight from Cairo to Abu Dhabi, we prepared 5 liters of water," said Gaelle Schlup-Olivier, head of Experimental Kitchen, with Swiss nutrition giant Nestle who developed the food for both pilots. She told Xinhua that while Piccard's favorite meal was Swiss Muesli, while Borschberg preferred non-meat meals.

The SI2 was not the first Swiss innovative means of transport that was showcased live in the UAE.

In 2007, Swiss teacher and green energy activist Louis Palmer did a stopover in Dubai when he circumvented the world on a 54,000 km tour with his Solar taxi, a car solely powered by the attached trail which carried a solar-panel.

In January 2012, during the annual World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, MS Turanor PlanetSolar, the largest solar-powered boat in the world owned by Swiss company PlanetSolar SA, stopped at the coast of Abu Dhabi before it completed its two-year trip around the world without using a single liter of petrol, sailing home to its original port in Monaco. Endit