Gadgetory

hey guys we're here at Moffett Field in Mountain View California checking out the Solar Impulse 2 solar-powered airplane i'm here with pilot Andre Borschberg he's been piloting this thing all over the world so tell us about the plane you guys just landed from Hawaii tell us about your journey so far we fly around the world with a method powered by solar energy only and if you fly with the Sun you need an airplane which is extremely energy-efficient you'll be able to fly through the nights and to make it efficient we had to build an app in very big it's bigger than a 747 with the weight of a car this was the the challenge the aviation industry told us 13 years ago it was impossible we decided to delete ourself and that's the result what are some of the challenges you guys have run into during your trip so far and understand the batteries get overheated what other kinds of challenges of you guys run into if you realize it's an experimental evidence oh you are discovering what you are doing you know when you board the airplane you have to be ready for the unknown we had surprises I had the major equipment not functioning of the departure engineers wanted me to come back that was the first time that the weather window was improving over the Pacific Ocean and I decided to continues but big emotions big turmoil in the team itself some people threatening to resign it was really difficult but you know through phone conference and 20,000 feeds we could agree that that everybody was keeping the support on the project and make it feasible and it happens to be successful afterwards every leg is a challenge because every leg you discover something else the weather can be different it's an app in which is completely completely different to what has been designed so it's it's a constant learning process but so far I think what we can say is that the technology web here which is solar cells which is electric motors which is batteries we function in the same way that's agreed functions on the ground I mean if communities want to use renewable energy they will do exactly the same that what we do a discipline these technologies are very reliable so it's a demonstration here of what we can do on the ground in our world in our cities in our communities if you tell us a little bit about the battery technology that you're using on the plane battery we use our lithium polymer battery so quite similar that what you have in computers what you have in the test lock ask for example I think we push them a little bit further because weight is extremely important we made them lighter but at the end these are similar technologies that you can use on the ground what is the top speed of the airplane at this point the dog speed is modest it's about 40 to 50 miles but the big advantage is that you don't have to go down to refuel now at least realize we at the time of the pioneers you know when the wright brothers so Charles Lindbergh flew they were alone they flew slowly and if you realize that from the first flight of the Wright brothers he took 66 years to go the moon this was the trigger moment to make the further development happening so this is a first step in the direction of electric aviation of potentially maybe green aviation aviation using less or no oh no co2 so it will take time to see this in transport a plane but you need a first step