Where next for solar-powered flight?

 

There was something mesmerising about watching Solar Impulse come in to land, particularly at night.

Moving slowly but deliberately, its LEDs lighting the way - the plane did look very different to anything we would recognise at an airport.

This Swiss project set out to achieve a number of goals.

The obvious one was rooted in adventure - to do something no-one had done before and to fly around the globe on no fuel.

It's certainly achieved that, and, in fact, set no fewer than 19 aviation records in the process.

The most remarkable of these was the five-day, five-night crossing of the Western Pacific in June/July last year.

That was the longest (time duration) solo flight in history by any sort of plane.

And related to all this was the objective of proving, of demonstrating, that the moment for clean technologies is here and now.