– Intensive training –
Borschberg and Piccard will alternate flying the plane, which can fly on autopilot during rest breaks.
“You have to make the cockpit like your own house… you go to the toilet, you wash yourself with wet wipes, you eat, you drink, you recline the seat to have some rest, you turn on the autopilot,” Piccard told reporters.
Both pilots have undergone intensive training in preparation for the trip, including in yoga and self-hypnosis, allowing them to sleep for periods as short as 20 minutes but still awake feeling refreshed.
All this will happen without burning a drop of fuel.
While in the air, the pilots will be linked to a control centre in Monaco where 65 weathermen, air traffic controllers and engineers will be stationed. A team of 65 ground staff will travel with the two pilots.
“We want to share our vision of a clean future,” Piccard said of the mission, which was ridiculed by the aviation industry when it was first unveiled.
But the 57-year-old, who hails from a family of scientist-adventurers and in 1999 became the first person to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon, clung to his belief that clean technology and renewable energy “can achieve the impossible”.
The plane is powered by more than 17,000 solar cells built into wings that, at 72 metres, are longer than on a Boeing 747 and approaching those of an Airbus A380 superjumbo.
Thanks to an innovative design, the lightweight carbon fibre aircraft weighs only 2.3 tonnes, about the same as a family 4X4 and less than one percent of the weight of the A380.
The Si2 is the first solar-powered aircraft able to stay aloft for several days and nights.
The propeller-driven craft has four 17.5 horsepower electric motors with rechargeable lithium batteries.
It will travel at 50-100 kilometres per hour, but slower at night to prevent the batteries from draining too quickly.
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