Pilot Bertrand Piccard took off from Moffett Airfield at NASA’s Ames Research Center (CA) at 06:12 AM PDT (UTC-7) and, after a 18 hours and 18 minutes flight from southern California, over the Mojave National Preserve and into Arizona, he landed the HB-SIA prototype at 00:30 AM MST (UTC-7) at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport. This is the first of five legs that will lead the project’s co-founders, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, to alternately fly the solar airplane coast-to-coast from California to New York.
By crossing the United States André Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard are launching the “Clean Generation” initiative – a global awareness-raising movement advocating for greater investment in innovative technologies for sustainable energy production and use. Thousands of Supporters worldwide have joined the movement and their names will be virtually brought by the pilots across America by means of a USB key – and with every stopover more will be added. All those interested in being part of this movement of influencers can sign up here.
“We’ve been dreaming about crossing the United States for years - the land of scientific research, innovation and aviation pioneers – and it’s hard to believe it’s really happening.” said André Borschberg (Co-Founder, CEO and pilot of Solar Impulse) and Bertrand Piccard (Initiator, Chairman and pilot of Solar Impulse) as they walked down the runway. “We are thrilled to have safely and successfully completed this first leg and we weren’t alone: thousands of names of our supporters virtually accompanied us. With them, we launched the “Clean Generation” initiative promoting clean technologies.”
