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Solar Impulse taking off on its historic flight around the world on solar power

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Solar Impulse, the solar aircraft built in Switzerland to circle the globe, took off on last Monday early morning at Moffett Federal Airfield at NASA Ames in Mountain View, California. I got an invite to witness this historic journey around the world.

 

Founders and pilots Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg first addressed the press. André climbed into the cockpit for this leg to Phoenix, Arizona. The flight took 16 hours. I had a big tripod with me and could blend in with the press to get a prime spot for takeoff. Preparations were long, but the actual takeoff happened very quiet and sudden. I took this shot at the time of take-off at 5am in the morning.

 

Bertrand and André want us to use more clean energies. In their word, they want to push the transition to renewable energy resources. Very inspiring!

 

The aircraft has a wingspan bigger than a Boeing 747, but weights just 2 tons instead of 400 tons. To preserve weight and aerodynamics, this aircraft has no landing gears on the side. People hold the aircraft level on long poles until it gains enough speed. More info on this historic flight at www.solarimpulse.com

 

I processed a balanced HDR photo from a RAW exposure.

 

-- © Peter Thoeny, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, NEX-6, _DSC6477_hdr1bal1d

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Uploaded on May 10, 2016
Taken on May 2, 2016