Solar Impulse – Flying to change the world

Officially launched in 2003, Solar Impulse is an extraordinary technological adventure. A cutting-edge scientific program, a veritable technical laboratory capable of flying around the planet without using any polluting energy.

It’s also a crazy gamble. That of Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, two pioneers with a fierce desire to change the world, to go beyond the limits of what is possible to improve the quality of life for humanity. Solar Impulse was not built to carry passengers, but to carry messages,” says Bertrand Piccard. We want to demonstrate the importance of the pioneering spirit, to encourage people to question their certainties.” A spirit of adventure, technical innovation, technological progress… To go from dream to project and from project to reality, sixteen long years will have elapsed between the birth of the idea in Bertrand Piccard’s mind, in 1999, and its consecration in 2015.
After crossing America in 2013 aboard the Solar Impulse 1 prototype, the visionary project shifted up a gear in 2015 by completing the first solar-powered flight around the world. Setting off from Abu Dhabi in March, Solar Impulse 2 is due to complete its circumnavigation in five months, with stopovers in Oman, India, China, the USA, Southern Europe and North Africa. “The question now is not so much whether man will be able to go even further and populate other planets, the question is how to organize himself in such a way as to make life on Earth increasingly worth living,” declared Auguste Piccard in 1931 following his first stratospheric ascent.

With Solar Impulse, his grandson has come up with a way of changing the world. Solar, ingenious… bright!

Solar Impulse is…

1 unique aircraft capable of flying day and night without fuel or pollutant emissions.
12 years of feasibility studies, conception, design and construction.
72-meter wingspan, larger than a Boeing 747-800.
17,248 solar cells integrated into the wing to power four electric motors with renewable energy.
2,300 kg, equivalent to the weight of a car.
35,000 km around the world at speeds of 50 to 100 km/h.
2 pilots who take turns at each stopover.
80 technicians and engineers mobilized for the round-the-world tour.
25 days flying around the world in 2015.

André Borschberg, Bertrand Piccard and the Solar Impulse © Regis Colombo / Diapo.ch

Pioneers’ words

Bertrand Piccard The great feats of the 20th century were conquests: the Poles, Everest, the Abyss, the Moon. Those of the 21st century, in my opinion, should be much more about preserving and even improving the quality of life on our planet. How can we reconcile economic and ecological interests, promote the use of new technologies to save energy and create alternative sources? Solar Impulse is a symbol of this state of mind.

André Borschberg Imagine the energy reserves that increase over the course of a flight! To meet this challenge, we had to make the most of every watt made available to us by the sun, and store it in our batteries. All forms of energy efficiency were sought. It was by comparing the experiences of each team member and adding up their potential that we came up with the solutions.

A watchmaker on the adventure

Omega has been Solar Impulse’s main partner since 2006, and has made a number of technological contributions to the adventure. Among the concrete innovations contributed by the watch brand are a luminous landing guidance system, a test bench to simulate and optimize the plane’s electrical system, and an Omega instrument to indicate the flight trajectory.

For the occasion, Omega has produced a Speedmaster Skywalker X-33 Solar Impulse in a limited edition of 1924, available from Lionel Meylan!