Solar-Powered Plane in Last Legs of Global Journey

Two pilots circumnavigating the globe using only the power of the sun hit the 90 percent mark of their journey Thursday.

The plane, named the Solar Impulse 2, landed in Seville, Spain, after a little more than 71 hours in flight over the Atlantic Ocean, according to a blog post on the Solar Impulse site.

The two pilots, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, have controlled alternate legs of the plane’s journey, which began in Abu Dhabi in March 2015. Piccard, who was the pilot behind this segment of the trip, took off from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport early Monday morning.

It was “a beautiful flight that has countlessly left Bertrand in awe at the vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean – encountering oil tankers, islands, whales, icebergs, and an abundance of water,” the team stated in the blog post.

The Solar Impulse 2 has solar panels that charge the plane’s batteries. The plane flies at about 30 mph and to conserve power, the pilot ascends to higher altitudes during the day and glides down to lower altitudes during the night, according to npr.

The flight over the Atlantic was not the longest leg of the journey. Borschberg managed a flight from Japan to Hawaii that took 120 hours. That trip fried the plane’s batteries and required a nine-month delay for repairs, according to npr.

The pilots plan to end the journey where it began: Abu Dhabi. The date of that last journey will depend on weather conditions.

Image via Solar Impulse.