Solar Impulse 2 completed historic round-the-world flight

The first round-the-world solar-powered plane flight has completed after touching down in Abu Dhabi.

The solar plane piloted by Bertrand Piccard for a final time, steering it safely from the Egyptian capital Cairo to the UAE.

Piccard has been taking turns at the controls with Swiss compatriot Andre Borschberg, as the mission of the flight is to promote renewable energy.

“The future is clean. The future is you. The future is now. Let’s take it further,” Mr Piccard said.

Piccard and Borschberg have been working on the Solar Impulse project for more than a decade and it was just one of 19 official aviation records set during the global adventure.

The said solar plane, with its experimental design presents a number of technical difficulties which is very sensitive to weather conditions. For Piccard, the passage from Cairo was very bumpy as he battled severe turbulence over the hot Saudi desert.

Solar Impulse 2 has the wingspan of a Boeing 747, no heavier than a car and powered by 17,000 solar cells.

Pilots have to wear oxygen tanks in order to breathe at high altitude and permitted to sleep only for 20 minutes at a time, since the cockpit is about the size of a public telephone box.

The Solar Impulse 2 17-stage journey covered some 42,000 km, taking in four continents, three seas and two oceans.