ST. LOUIS, MO. – Swiss pilots, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, took off from Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif. on May 3, 2013, in the solar-powered airplane, Solar Impulse HB-SIA, en route to New York. They stopped in Phoenix, Dallas, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Washington, D.C. before reaching their final destination, John F. Kennedy International Airport on July 6.
When Solar Impulse landed in Lambert-St. Louis International Airport on June 4, 2013, completing its third leg of the 2013 Across America mission, the team had to use their inflatable mobile hangar for the first time during a mission.
The revolutionary hangar was conceived and designed by Solar Impulse for the around-the-world mission in 2015, but provided a shelter after storms severely damaged the hangar reserved for the aircraft at Lambert-St. Louis Int’l Airport.
The choice of St. Louis as the Solar Impulse Midwest stop was no coincidence. The city has played a significant role in the history of American aviation back in the days when Charles Lindbergh was a chief pilot for the Chicago to St. Louis U.S. Mail Route. The city’s business leaders, including the namesake of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Albert Bond Lambert, supported Lindbergh in his bid to make the first trans-Atlantic flight between New York and Paris in 1927 in the “Spirit of St. Louis.”
“It was particularly important for me to come to St. Louis because I was so inspired when I met Charles Lindbergh at Cape Canaveral during a launch of the Apollo when I was 11 years old,” said Bertrand Piccard, initiator, chairman and pilot of Solar Impulse shortly after landing. “I’m truly moved to be able to land here today with Solar Impulse.”
Shortly after landing at JFK, Borschberg stated that the aircraft sustained damage to its fabric on the left wing: “It obliged the team to envisage all the possible scenarios, including bailing out over the Atlantic. But this type of problem is inherent to every experimental endeavor. In the end, this didn’t prevent us from succeeding in our Across America mission and provided an invaluable learning experience in preparation for the round-the-world tour in 2015.”
Solar Impulse is a revolutionary carbon fibre airplane with the wingspan of a Boeing 747 (63.4m / 208 ft) and the weight of a small car (1,600kg / 3,527 lb). It is the result of seven years of intense work, calculations, simulations and tests by a team of about 80 people and 100 partners and advisors. A plane so big and light has never been built before. The 12,000 solar cells built into the wing provide four 10 hp electric motors with renewable energy. By day the solar cells recharge the 400kg / 881 lb. lithium batteries which allow the plane to fly at night and 24 hours a day.
The purpose of Solar Impulse is to inspire everyone to become pioneers in their everyday lives. Its latest initiative, “Clean Generation,” is creating a global movement to promote the use of clean technologies and is already rallying thousands of people to support the adoption of sustainable energy solutions (www.solarimpulse.com).
