Global Airport News

A solar energy plane began the world's first international flight powered by the sun last Friday to show the potential for pollution-free air travel.

The Solar Impulse took off from an airfield at Payerne in western Switzerland on Friday morning and was due to land at Brussels airport 12 hours later.

"The objective is to demonstrate what we can do with existing technology in terms of renewable energy and energy savings," project co-founder and pilot Andre Borschberg said by phone midway through his flight.

Borschberg believes such solar-harnessing technology can be replicated to power cars and homes.

"It is symbolic to be able to go from one place to another using solar energy," he said.

The Solar Impulse project began in 2003 with a 10-year budget of EUR€90 million (USD$128.6 million) and has involved engineers from Swiss elevator maker Schindler and research aid from Belgian chemicals group Solvay.

The plane, which requires 12,000 solar cells, embarked on its first flight in April 2010 and completed a 26-hour flight, a record flying time for a solar powered aircraft, three months later.

With an average flying speed of 70 km per hour (44 miles per hour), Solar Impulse is not an immediate threat to commercial jets, which can easily cruise at more than 10 times the speed. A flight from Geneva from Brussels can take little more than an hour.

Project leaders acknowledged it had been a major challenge to fit a slow-flying plane into the commercial air traffic system.

Friday's flight, which took off at 0640 GMT, is Solar Impulse's fifth. Previous flights did not leave Switzerland.

A larger prototype is scheduled to fly around the world in 2013.