Solar-powered plane set to fly in United States

The path breaking solar-powered plane is making final preparations for a flight across the United States.

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After several hours of non-stop flights at different locations, Solar Impulse will fly across the United States, starting from the West Coast.

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The flight will take off from San Francisco in early May and land at New York's John F. Kennedy airport.

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By 2015, Swiss pilot Bertrand Piccard and project co-founder and pilot Andre Borschberg plan to undertake the first round-the-world flight without any fuel.

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Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss aeronaut and psychiatrist was the co-pilot of a non-stop balloon trip around the world.

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The Solar Impulse, made of carbon fiber sheets and powered by solar cells, will attempt to fly once around the world powered solely by solar energy.

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Solar Impulse is a Swiss long-range solar powered aircraft project being undertaken at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.

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Piccard initiated the Solar Impulse project in 2003 with a 10-year budget of $112 million.

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By 2009, he had a multi-disciplinary team of 50 specialists from six countries, assisted by about 100 outside advisers. The project is financed by a number of private companies.

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The first aircraft, bearing the Swiss aircraft registration code of HB-SIA, is a single-seater monoplane, capable of taking off under its own power, and intended to remain airborne up to 36 hours.

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In 2012, Piccard and Borschberg conducted successful solar flight from Switzerland to Spain and Morocco in 26 hours.

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Building on the experience of this prototype, a slightly larger follow-on design (HB-SIB) is planned to make a circumnavigation of the globe in 20-25 days.