A solar-powered aircraft embarked on Saturday on the latest leg of an around-the-world journey designed to showcase what clean energy can do, taking off from Tulsa, Oklahoma for Dayton, Ohio, the cradle of US aviation.

The Solar Impulse 2, piloted by Swiss businessman Andre Borschberg, was due to arrive at 11:00 pm at Dayton International Airport after an 180hour flight up and across the agricultural midsection of the United States.

The slow moving, single seater plane with the wingspan of a Boeing 747 cuts a flimsy figure, but it has traversed much of globe in stages since taking off March 9, 2015 from Abu Dhabi.

The aircraft is clad in thousands of solar cells, the sole source of energy for the flight.Travelling at average speeds of only 48 kilometers per hour, it will take much longer to reach Dayton in Solar Impulse 2 than in a car, with the typical road trip from Tulsa estimated at 12 hours.

The flight to Dayton is the 12th leg of Solar Impulse’s projected 16-leg east-west circumnavigation, with Borschberg and Bertrand Piccard alternating as pilots. Piccard is the Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist who initiated the project.

“The flight is part of the attempt to achieve the first ever Round-The-World Solar Flight, the goal of which is to demonstrate how modern clean technologies can achieve the impossible,” they said in a statement.

Dayton is significant to aviation buffs because it is the home of Orville and Wilbur Wright, brothers who developed the world’s first successful aircraft.

The Solar Impulse 2, which weighs roughly the same as a family car, contains 17,000 solar cells that power the aircraft’s propellers and charge batteries. At night it runs on stored energy. The plane’s typical flight speed can increase to double that when exposed to full sunlight.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2016