~~~~Wired1

Click link below picture

.

Bertrand Piccard is somewhere high over central California right now, flying southward in a giant airplane powered only by the sun.

Piccard is the co-founder and pilot of Solar Impulse, a solar powered airplane that left Moffett Field south of San Francisco shortly after 6 a.m. PDT today to begin an eight-week journey across the country. As impressive as that sounds, it is but a trial run for the dream he and fellow pilot André Borschberg have been working toward since 2007: a zero-emissions flight around the world in 2015.

The longest journey, as they say, begins with the first step, which for Piccard ends after midnight tonight when he touches down in Phoenix. He and his crew have spent several weeks in California, assembling and testing the aircraft after having it flown from Switzerland aboard a Boeing 747.

.

!SolarImpulse1

The Solar Impulse airplane, over the Sacramento River Delta on the first leg of its transcontinental flight. Photo: F. Merz/Solar Impulse

.

.Click link below for article and gallery:

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/05/solar-impulse-2/#slideid-57437

.

_____________________________________________________