On 13 February at the Rainier-III Auditorium, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will present the film Solar Impulse about their impossible world tour, followed by a discussion with the public.
They are counted among the heroes of the year 2016, and beyond. On 26 July, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg succeeded in doing something which technology had never allowed before: a 43,000-kilometre round-the-world trip aboard the single-seater Solar Impulse, powered by solar energy alone. A project worthy of the works of Hercules, started in March 2015, stopped four months later by technical issues, and relaunched in spring 2016 to finish in July.
The adventure of a lifetime
This adventure is now traced in a documentary film, Solar lmpulse, the impossible world tour, directed by Mathieu Czernichow and Eric Beaufils. It will be previewed on 13 February at 5:30 pm in the Principality, in the large hall of the Auditorium Rainier III, the place where, for two seasons, the Solar Impulse technical team had set themselves up with their equipment to create a fixed control tower for the nomadic aircraft as it flew over five continents. On the occasion of this evening, Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, the two creators of the solar plane will return to Monaco, for a Q&A with the public after the film that portrays this crazy epic journey. The pilots will notably speak about their intellectual and physical commitment that propelled the project for several years.
The solar plane to be exhibited in a museum?
What will be the future of Solar Impulse? Having managed to fly over five continents, the solar plane, second prototype based on the idea of Bertrand Piccard, is no longer destined for the air. Last November, the large-scale plane, completely dismantled, left by cargo from Abu Dhabi where it had landed on 26 July, and headed towards its home country of Switzerland. Solar Impulse has been taken apart and is now housed in a hangar in the Dübendorf airfield, where it was built and where the team works. For several weeks the team has chosen to focus Solar Impulse’s environmental achievement in the field of ecology, notably through the creation of the Global Alliance for Clean Technology, launched at COP22 in Marrakech last November.
Several possibilities for the future
In parallel, Bertrand Piccard is currently exploring various possibilities for the future of the solar plane and its presentation to the public. “Museums around the world have already shown a keen interest in welcoming Solar Impulse, but none of them has enough space for an airplane of this size. We also planned to reassemble it and fly it again for demonstrations, but again the Dübendorf hangar is too small,” said the team, who are planning to use the aircraft for the development of future projects technological developments. For the record, the first prototype of Solar Impulse, created in the early 2000s, has been visible since March 2015 at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris, the largest science museum in Europe.
How to see it?
The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation and the Government of Monaco are organising a screening of the film Solar Impulse, the impossible world tour on Monday 13th February at 5.30pm at the Rainier III Auditorium.
Admission is free by reservation via the following e-mail address: Solarimpulse@fpa2.org
For further information: Tel.: +37798984444
So if you are interested in seeing and hearing more about this epic eco-friendly journey, reserve your place so that you can see the film about the Solar Impulse as it made its great world tour.
