Fighting the glacial wind, known as the bise in this part of Switzerland, Solar Impulse’s team, Swissport and Cargolux employees together were able to load HB-SIA’s disassembled parts into Cargolux’s mastodon Boeing-747. The aircraft is already on its way for the United States and is expected to land sometime around 12:30PM local San Francisco time on Thursday 21 February.

Never have I seen a cargo aircraft up close and the relatively small size of the Payerne runway made the Jumbo Jet look even more disproportionate. Several curious onlookers were present last night to watch the beast gently touch the tarmac and maneuver into its loading position.

We had a chance to visit the 747’s insides, including the top deck with the cockpit and passenger seating. I was reassured, our engineers and technicians are in good hands: the seats looked comfortable and passengers even have access to a miniscule room with a bed. I couldn’t stop thinking about how pleasant it must be to do a transatlantic flight devoid of crying babies, irritatingly narrow seating areas (making you feel more like a sardine when the person in front of you gets too comfortable), and annoying lines to use the restroom after lunch. One small detail that might be missing is a smiley young flight attendant to serve them a hot meal. But then again, we don’t want our trio getting too distracted now, do we?

Farewell, Au Revoir and best of luck on your new adventure HB-SIA!

Tomorrow, 20 February 2013, Cargolux's impressive Boeing 747 (a.k.a. Jumbo Jet) will be landing at Payerne’s small military airfield. Scheduled to land between 4:45PM and 5PM, the loading will take place immediately thereafter with a departure the following day for Moffett Airfield at the Ames Research Center of NASA in San Francisco. Located at the heart of Silicon Valley, it’s the perfect place to start this year’s Across America mission.

Imagine, with the same wingspan as HB-SIA (64m) this aeronautical beast is 257 times the weight of Solar Impulse’s solar-powered airplane (1’600 kg vs. 412’770 kg)! The internal main deck will be stuffed with the dismantled HB-SIA and all the material needed to complete this spring/summer’s Across America mission, including the tools necessary for reassembly. This will leave enough room to squeeze in a few of our engineers and technicians somewhere between the fuselage and the tail boom for one, between the gondola crates and wing parts for the second and in front of the cockpit for the third…

Jokes aside; as much as we care about HB-SIA’s wellbeing, the three Solar Impulse team members have skillfully negotiated some fine business-style seating in the anterior part of the aircraft, avoiding an uncomfortable and frigid transatlantic flight to the faraway coast of California. They will be our watchdogs, ensuring the safety and handling requirements are followed during the unloading of this unique aircraft. 

That’s it; there’s no turning back now – HB-SIA is slowly but surely looking less like an airplane and more like a scattered set of parts of an adult version toy mechanic.  The solar aircraft is getting ready for its USA adventure this spring!

This week the gondolas, vertical and horizontal stabilizers and the wings were entirely dismantled leaving a skimpy skeletal version of a solar airplane alone inside the vast hangar. The greatest challenge the team faced was when they detached the impressive 64m by 710kg wings from the aircraft’s body - the fuselage.

The wings are secured to the fuselage by five metallic rods. The rods are sleek and are meant to pop out when there is no load or pressure on them; but to achieve this, two cranes had to gently and simultaneously lift the wings until the rods were released. There is really no way of knowing exactly when the rods will let go of their solid grip and the process has to be done slowly and with no time constraints. Silence reigned in the Payerne hanger while two engineers had all their attention dedicated to the rods, patiently awaiting the moment of their disengagement.

The same process is required to undo the wings into three separate parts, but this exercise didn’t require the cranes, making it somewhat more manageable.

On 29 September Markus Scherdel was awarded the Ivan C. Kincheloe prize by the Society of Experimental Test Pilots (SETP) in Anaheim, California. The award is offered each year to outstanding professionals and members of the SETP that have conducted remarkable test flights.

As Solar Impulse’s test pilot, Markus was the first to have proven that the aircraft can fly. It was a memorable moment when, in the icy month of December 2009, Markus sat in HB-SIA’s open cockpit (the canopy was yet to be installed), initiated the aircraft’s propellers and began to advance on the runway. In just a few moments, the prototype made what could seem like a small jump of joy: Solar Impulse did its first flea hop!

As soon as it was established that HB-SIA could indeed lift itself off the ground, Markus proceeded to take it for its first outing on 7 April 2010. The maiden flight lasted 87 minutes and went up to an altitude of 1’500 meters. Markus undertook a number of maneuvers meant to test the airplane’s reactiveness to certain commands, the responsiveness of the engines and the landing gear. If anybody watched the flight, they would have seen what looked like the world’s first aeronautic convertible because, devoid of the canopy, the cockpit was just a metal skeleton with a pilot in the center. Brrrr!

But Markus didn’t suffer from the cold or from attacks of kamikaze flies. As he mentions in his interview , he might have just had a slight feeling of victory similar to that of an Olympian and I don’t blame him: HB-SIA, a prototype initially designed to fly day and night has entered the annals of history as the first solar airplane to connect two continents: Europe to Africa.