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A Swiss solar-powered plane took off from Abu Dhabi early Monday, March 9, marking the start of the first attempt to fly around the world without a drop of fuel. Solar Impulse founder André Borschberg was at the controls when it took off from the Al Bateen Executive Airport. Borschberg will trade off piloting with Solar Impulse co-founder Bertrand Piccard during stop-overs on a journey that will take months to complete.

The Swiss pilots say they want to create awareness about replacing "old polluting technologies with clean and efficient technologies." The plane is expected to reach its first destination — Muscat— after about 10 hours of flight. Some parts of the trip, such as over the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, will mean five or six straight days of flying.

The lightweight Solar Impulse 2, a larger version of a single-seat prototype that first flew five years ago, is made of carbon fiber and has 17,248 solar cells built into the wing that supply the plane with renewable energy. The solar cells recharge four batteries. The company says the plane has a 72-meter long wing, larger than that of the Boeing 747, but weighs about as much as a car at around 2,300 kilograms. The plane in June made a flight of two hours and 17 minutes above western Switzerland, just two months after it was made.

After Oman, the plane will head to India, where it will make two stops, then to China and Myanmar before heading across the Pacific and stopping in Hawaii. Then it will head New York's biggest airport, John F. Kennedy International. The path across the Atlantic will depend on the weather and could include a stop in southern Europe before ending in Abu Dhabi. The round-the-world trip is expected to end in late July.

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