The flight from Seville to Cairo is expected to last two days and two nights, according to a Solar Impulse statement. The Swiss solar-powered aircraft took off on Monday morning from Spain and will attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea without using a single drop of fuel.
“After 36,000 kilometres, people might start to find it obvious to fly day and night without fuel, but it’s still a very difficult endeavour and the challenge will remain open until the last minute,” said Bertrand Piccard, initiator and pilot of Solar Impulse as well as honourary president of the business association swisscleantech.
Piccard’s colleague and co-pilot André Borschberg is in the aircraft’s cockpit for this leg of the journey, which will take him over Spain, Algeria, Tunisia, Malta, Greece and Egypt.
“This flight across Europe will touch a large number of countries, very diverse in terms of culture, climate and geography. But in addition to all being on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea, they have a common denominator: the potential benefit of using renewable energies and clean technology,” said Borschberg.
Piccard and Borschberg want to demonstrate with the first round-the-world solar flight how modern clean technologies can achieve the seemingly impossible.