Solar Impulse 2 (SI2) arrives at Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), on July 26, 2016. The fully-solar energy powered plane arrived in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and completed its global tour.
Fully-solar energy powered plane Solar Impulse 2 (SI2), developed and flown by Swiss psychiatrist and adventurer Bertrand Piccard, landed here safely Tuesday morning, after completing the aircraft's world tour that started on March 9, 2015.
The last and 17th leg of the 22-meter-long plane from Cairo to Abu Dhabi took around 48 hours. The aircraft arrived at Al Bateen Executive Airport in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), at 4:05 a.m. local time (0005 GMT).
"The first thing I will do is after I land, I will thank the team," Piccard told the CNN in midair when he overflew Saudi Arabian airspace.
Upon arrival at 36 degrees Celcius in the dark, the 58-year-old Piccard was greeted by his Swiss co-founder and pilot partner Andre Borschberg, UAE Minister of State Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Swiss Vice President Doris Leuthard and Prince Albert II of Monaco. Hundreds of media representatives, officials and corporate executives from the UAE, Switzerland and Monaco joined the arrival.
"Andre Borschberg and myself waited for this moment for 15 years," Piccard said in his first address after landing.
"We flew 40,000 kilometers without fuel. It is now up to everyone to change the world by using renewable energy. The future is clean," he added.
During its 16-month-long world tour, SI2 made stops in Oman, India, Myanmar, China, Japan, the United States, Europe and Africa. The two Swiss adventurers took turns piloting the plane from trip to trip as SI2 has only one pilot seat.
"During his last flight, we prepared 5 liters of water," said Gaelle Schlup-Olivier, head of Experimental Kitchen, with Swiss nutrition giant Nestle who developed the food for both pilots. She told Xinhua that Piccard's favorite meal was Swiss Muesli, while Borschberg preferred non-meat meals, "although he is not a vegetarian per se."
Piccard is the son of the undersea explorer Jacques Piccard who beat at that time a world record, as he dived in 1960 with a two-man submarine to the descent of 10,916 meters on the floor of the Mariana Trench in the North Pacific Ocean. Piccard's grandfather is Auguste Piccard who beat the altitude world record with a balloon, reaching 15,781 meters during his first flight in 1931, and 16,201 meters during the second flight in 1932.
SI2 was not the first Swiss innovative means of transport showcased live in the UAE.
In 2007, Swiss teacher and green energy activist Louis Palmer did a stopover in Dubai when he logged over 54,000 km through over 40 countries with his Solartaxi, a car solely powered by the attached trail which carried a solar-panel.
In January 2012, during the annual World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, MS Turanor PlanetSolar, the largest solar-powered boat in the world owned by Swiss company PlanetSolar SA, stopped at the coast of Abu Dhabi before it completed its two-year trip around the world without using a single liter of petrol, sailing home to its original port in Monaco.
