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Solar Impulse 2 completes longest solar-powered flight

By Danielle Haynes
The Solar Impulse 2 is towed into a hangar at the airport in Kalaeola, Hawaii, after completing the longest solar-powered flight. Photo by @solarimpulse/Twitter
The Solar Impulse 2 is towed into a hangar at the airport in Kalaeola, Hawaii, after completing the longest solar-powered flight. Photo by @solarimpulse/Twitter

KALAELOA, Hawaii, July 3 (UPI) -- The Solar Impulse 2, a completely solar-powered aircraft, made history Friday by completing the longest solar-powered flight from Japan to Hawaii.

The plane landed in Kalaeloa on the island of Oahu, completing the most difficult leg of its around-the-world journey.

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"At the controls of Solar Impulse 2, pilot André Borschberg landed safely in Kalaeloa on July 3rd at 05:55 local time Hawaii, after a perilous nonstop flight for 5 days and night," a post on the Solar Impulse 2 website said.

Not only did the journey set a record for longest solar-powered flight, it also set a record for longest solo flight by time.

The flight, from Nagoya, Japan, to Hawaii, was 4,000 miles long and took five days and nights to complete. In its entirety, the around-the-globe journey is 22,000 miles long and is estimated to take five months to complete.

"It is delicate to maintain a balance between my energy and the energy of the aircraft," Borschberg tweeted prior to landing Friday.

This longest leg of the flight, the eighth, was initially scheduled to take place in May, but bad weather forced Borschberg and fellow pilot Bertrand Piccard to cancel. The pair have been alternating solo flights on Solar Impulse 2 since the start of the journey in March. Five more legs will take the pair across the United States, to Europe, and finally to Abu Dhabi.

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