Panicking about the impact your air miles are having on the planet? Swiss pilot and entrepreneur Andre Borschberg says commercial clean flying is less than a decade away
Popping off to Paris, New York or Bali every other weekend has lost its cachet, as even jet-setters have started swapping planes for trains. From the moment Greta Thunburg thundered onto our screens, the Swedish concept of "flygskam" or "flight shame" began spreading.
But instead of envisioning a future where either Earth is engulfed in fiery flames or the world becomes as difficult to navigate as it was a century ago, we simply need to change the type of aircraft we use. That’s where Swiss pilot Andre Borschberg comes in. He has spent the last five years developing solar-powered planes—and flying them around the world—to promote clean technology. He created the Solar Impulse 2 with a team of engineers to prove to the world that fuel-free flying was easier to achieve than the aeronautical industry would have us believe.
“Solar Impulse is an electric plane, like the Telsa,” he explains, on the phone from Zurich. “And the energy source comes through batteries or through the use of solar planes. When the panels aren’t activated, say at night, it’s an electric plane. With the solar panels on it has unlimited endurance so long as there is sunlight, which means it can fly forever—something that you can achieve only if you use renewable energy.”
Along with his partner Bertrand Piccard, Borschberg has been working on this project for nearly two decades. It took them 15 years to put together the technical team and raise the US$170 million they needed to fund the project. Their first breakthrough came in 2010 when Borschberg became the first person to ever fly a solar-powered plane at night using no fuel, thanks to their innovative use of battery technology. Later that year, the team flew the plane across Switzerland. And in 2011, they flew to Belgium and France—by 2013, they made it to the US. In 2018, they had circumnavigated the globe.
