GENEVA — A Swiss adventurer said his first flight using a prototype of a solar-powered plane he will try to fly around the world was successful.
The short, low-altitude flight at a Swiss airfield Thursday proved the prototype can fly, said adventurer Bertrand Piccard, pilot of the first hot-air balloon to fly nonstop around the world.
“It was absolutely great to see this plane in the air,” Piccard told The Associated Press. “It’s a completely new flight domain. There has never been an airplane so big and so light flying with so little energy.”
The Solar Impulse, which has the wingspan of a Boeing 747 but weighs less than a small car, flew 1,150 feet at just 3 feet above the ground, Piccard said.
“The goal was not to make a big flight but to see if this airplane is behaving the way the engineers designed it,” he said. “And the result was excellent.”
Piccard and co-pilot Andre Borschberg will alternate in the cockpit when they try to take the plane around the world in 2012.
