Solar Plane's Harrowing 120-Hour Flight Begins
One pilot, five days over the Pacific, no fuel
The First Solar Plane Flying Around the World
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Solar Impulse, a plane powered entirely by the sun, has departed on a harrowing five-day journey over the Pacific Ocean. It's a one-way ticket from Japan to Hawaii. There's no turning back for this one-seater plane that cruises at just 40 miles an hour.
The plane's pilot, André Borschberg, 62, is making the flight alone, subsisting on 20-minute naps and a bit of mind-focusing yoga. Solar Impulse needs every daylight hour for charging batteries and gaining altitude, so a morning of overcast skies could end in disaster. The plane had been grounded in Nagoya, Japan, for weeks awaiting a break in the region's rainy season.