Pilot Of Solar Plane Shares Secrets Of Record-Setting Flight

Solar Plane Pilot Shares Secrets Of Record-Setting Flight
DUBENDORF, SWITZERLAND - NOVEMBER 19: André Borschberg, CEO of Solar Impulse poses during the preparation of the Solar Impulse airplane HB-SIA for a first runway test on November 19, 2009 in Dubendorf, Switzerland. Piccard, psychatrist and aeronaut, who made the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and CEO and former fighter pilot Borschberg plan a round-the-world flight, driven only by solar energy, for 2012. (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)
DUBENDORF, SWITZERLAND - NOVEMBER 19: André Borschberg, CEO of Solar Impulse poses during the preparation of the Solar Impulse airplane HB-SIA for a first runway test on November 19, 2009 in Dubendorf, Switzerland. Piccard, psychatrist and aeronaut, who made the first non-stop round-the-world balloon flight, and CEO and former fighter pilot Borschberg plan a round-the-world flight, driven only by solar energy, for 2012. (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

Swiss pilot André Borschberg still has a long flight ahead. He took off Sunday afternoon from Nagoya, Japan, in the Solar Impulse 2, an experimental craft powered only by sunlight that is attempting to set a record as the first plane of its kind to circumnavigate the globe.

After several weather delays, Borschberg is finally en route to Hawaii, on the most difficult leg of the expedition, dubbed the “Earhart Leg” because it is roughly the same path on which Amelia Earhart disappeared 77 years ago. Borschberg is expected in Honolulu by Friday or Saturday.

We spoke with Borschberg via satellite uplink from his cramped cabin in the Solar Impulse 2.

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