Last updated: January 29, 2015


World Breaking News

Solar-powered plane to cross US

The experimental Solar Impulse plane

A solar-powered aircraft will fly across the US, showcasing what is possible without fossil fuels. Source: AAP

AN innovative solar-powered aircraft will fly from California across the United States, in a bid to showcase what is possible without fossil fuels.

The experimental Solar Impulse plane - with the wingspan of a Boeing 747 but the weight of a small car - bears 12,000 solar cells.

By day, the cells power the plane's electric motors while also charging batteries, so the plane, unlike other solar aircraft, can keep flying all night.

The project was launched more than a decade ago, after adventurer Bertrand Piccard, 54, nearly ran out of fuel on his historic non-stop round-the-world balloon flight.

The Swiss psychiatrist wants to try again, without using fossil fuel and the Solar Impulse project aims to launch its flight in 2015.

The group says the goal isn't to revolutionise air travel. Instead it wants to encourage new ways to use renewable resources more widely.

"Before, when you were talking about exploration, it was more about conquering the world, conquering territories," spokeswoman Alenka Zibetto told AFP.

"Now the real adventure is to make the world more sustainable, and to try to find solutions with the currently available technologies - to use what we currently have and adapt it.

"If we can do this in the air, we can also do this on the ground, in our everyday life," Zibetto said, suggesting the plane's solar panels could be adapted to power homes and for solar-charged batteries in cars.

The Solar Impulse plane has already made several trips, including a 26-hour flight in 2010 but this will mark its first trip across a continent.

The plane which will launch on Friday, could make the flight non-stop. That would take about three days, travelling at the aircraft's cruising speed of about 70 kilometres per hour, its creators said.

However the flight is being broken up into multiple stages. That's due to safety reasons - because there's space for only one pilot who has the intense task of navigating the ultra-light but ultra-long plane through turbulence.

Two pilots - Piccard and his co-founder, Swiss engineer and ex-fighter pilot Andre Borschberg - will share duties and rest between legs.

"We have limited ourselves to fly a duration maximum of 24 hours," Borschberg, 60, said at a press conference in March.

The plane is scheduled to stay over in Phoenix, Dallas and the US capital Washington, before arriving in New York in early July.

It will spend up to 10 days at each stop on its journey to showcase its technology to the public, including students who will also have a chance to talk with the pilots.

"The people will be able to follow the mission, to speak to the pilot, to ask questions," Piccard said.

"We would like to inspire students, schoolchildren, inspire as many people as possible to try to have the spirit to dare, to innovate, to invent."