DHAKA: At 62 years of age, Swiss Solar Impulse-2 pilot Andre Borschberg has made aviation history with a record breaking solo flight across the Pacific that he has called ‘an interior journey’.

After traveling more than 8,000km on the latest leg of the round-the-world trip, he arrived in Hawaii Friday, The Straits Times publishes this report on Saturday.

His Pacific flight from Japan totaled 118 hours , almost five full days, smashing the previous record for the longest nonstop solo flight of 76 hours and 45 minutes set by US adventurer Steve Fossett in 2006.

The Swiss pilot’s arduous journey was by no means in the lap of luxury.

His plane runs on solar power alone, so its weight had to be kept to a minimum.

Borschberg flew alone in a cockpit where he could only sit or lie down, and slept for intervals of 20 minutes with a vibrating armband waking him up in case of an anomaly.

Before taking off, the pilot said that this journey would be an ‘extraordinary occasion to discover myself’.

When he landed he tweeted ‘it’s a dream coming true’.

Borschberg partnered with Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist Bertrand Piccard to launch the unprecedented flight around the world on a plane powered exclusively by solar energy.

Solar Impulse-2 set off from Abu Dhabi earlier this year in a multi-leg attempt to fly around the world without using any fuel.

The plane will now be flown across the United States and eventually, if all goes according to plan, land back in Abu Dhabi next March.

It has 17,000 solar cells and onboard rechargeable lithium batteries, allowing it to fly through the night.

Its wingspan is longer than that of a jumbo jet but it weighs only 2.3 tones - about the same as a car.

BDST: 1145 HRS, JULY 04, 2015
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