Solar Impulse 2, the only electrically powered aircraft to circumnavigate Earth, was destroyed in a crash in the Gulf of Mexico while on an uncrewed autonomous test flight. The aircraft went down after losing power while being tested by its current owner, Skydweller Aero. Skydweller was testing the technology as a military reconnaissance platform and had been flying it without pilots since 2023. The company bought it off the Solar Impulse Foundation in 2019 to be used as a test bed for technology to build fleets of autonomous solar-powered aircraft to provide unlimited loiter capability for the military. When Skydweller was through with the enormous airframe it was supposed to be sent back to Switzerland to be displayed in a museum.
The ungainly looking aircraft made it around the world in 17 stops in 2016 with Bertrand Piccard and André Boschberg alternating piloting duties. The aircraft had more than 17,000 solar cells and 1,400 pounds of lithium ion batteries to supply four electric motors. It had a wingspan of 232 feet but weighed only 5,100 pounds. Pilots used supplemental oxygen to take the aircraft as high as 39,000 feet in the unheated cabin. It had a top speed of about 50 knots. In a statement to Popular Science, the two pilots lamented the loss of the history-making aircraft. “We learned through social media about the crash of the Skydweller solar drone,” Piccard and Borschberg wrote in the statement. “The Solar Impulse team is saddened by the loss of an important technological flagship.”
It’s Gulf of America
Gulf of America, Russ. Don’t be so non-inclusive.
It’s only applicable within the U.S., but because we have an international audience, Associated Press style is to use the traditional name.
So we need AP’s permission to change the name or use it in news articles? What would that entail?
Jen, it would seem Avbrief is headed down the same dangerous slope that befell AOPA as so frequently chronicled in your newsletter. The name is Gulf of America – using your rebuttal, show us the your subscriber nationality numbers please as similarly requested of falling AOPA membership ranks.. Avbrief readers have weighed in. To cite AP as a source, so politically askew, is bad form. I really enjoy Russ’ articles and frequently comment as such. Better to fix the the mistake or remain silent and don’t repeat it again. To double down with your sources risks readership – please.
Yep. If the government says it’s the Gulf of America, then that’s what we should all say and think. The government is always right and must be obeyed at all times. We must abandon tradition and independent thought. Only through total obedience can we make America great again.
Only within the current administration. Not an internationally recognized naming convention. As a Texan who grew up on the coast, it’s still the “Gulf of Mexico” as it has been for around 500 years.
Please don’t assume that “Avbrief readers have weighed in” because a handful of people have posted comments here arguing for your position. I assure you that you don’t speak for this AvBrief reader.
Do you mean the Gulf of America?
Uhhh… I think the Rutan Voyager did a little better at circumnavigation.
I also understand that an autonomous electric aircraft can stay airborne significantly longer. Too bad about the loss.
Both the Rutan Voyageur and the Solar Impulse successfully completed extraordinarily different missions. I am in awe of everyone who worked on each of these aircraft and missions.
I don’t see why it makes sense to try to rank them.
Unless all of the posters who “corrected” Russ are doing so with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks (doubtful) the President’s authority to “rename” that body of water applies ONLY to Executive Branch agencies. Not to Congress, not to the courts, not to the States, and certainly not to any other entity (governmental or otherwise) on earth. Including AvBrief.
Furthermore, the next president is very likely to rescind that Executive Order, and the only vestige of it will be an embarrassing historical footnote of executive hubris.
If readers want to express umbrage, how about the fact that a unique (and quite fragile) artifact of aviation history was not immediately consigned to the tender mercies of an aviation museum, and instead flogged into a flight-test program for a military application? I doubt that Capt. Piccard (either one) would have approved.
Thank You Aviatrexx! Well said.
We can’t soar like an eagle when we are surrounded by turkeys,
Good summation, Aviatrexx. Factual details can not only be pesky but triggers fer shootin’.
When Sky Harbor Airport was host to a landing stop in May of 2013 for Solar Impulse we watched the elegant, nearly silent, beautifully lit bird gracefully touch the runway in a clear night sky.
Sad to hear about this loss under said circumstances.
Unfortunate; that aircraft should have gone to a museum.
Also, they changed it back to Gulf of Mexico?
I prefer the Gulf of Mexico. Absurd isolationism has not worked for any country, ever.
Gulf of AMERICA! Whether you libs like it or not!
The fact that this is even noticed in an article on an aviation website 12 months later proves how effective this sort of nonsense is. It took an absolutely mundane, uncontroversial, undiscussed, and unimportant nothing and turned it to something to distract, label and divide society. The result of this behavior is to provide tools for injecting division into every nook and cranny of society. Instead of socializing with each other and discussing our mutual personal interests, it hijacks every interaction and turns into an “us vs them” exercise. Remember when congress renamed “French fries” to “freedom fries”? For a time, it had people talking about what we call peeled, sliced, and fried potatoes as if that somehow actually mattered. God help us.
Solar powered flight made history and I was fortunate to see most of it in real time.
The future is here regarding abundant energy for flight.
Godspeed !!!
Correct spelling is “Gulf Of Amurica”
I had no idea TDS ruled the roost here on an aviation site. Thank you for some good articles but I will be signing off and unsubscribing as I do not wish to support such a site in any way. Blue skies and tailwinds to all.
AvBrief is proof that politics is now our god (small “g”intentional).
Gotta admit that it’s disappointing seeing any historic aircraft lost rather than being preserved in a museum. Perhaps this was an effective use of the airframe for R&D but I can’t imagine that other hulls couldn’t have done as well.
Agreed. Wish it had gone to a museum.
That’s a real pity. When they had the aircraft on display at Moffett Federal Airfield in 2013 before they started their cross-US flight, my friend and I went to see it, and heard Bertrand speak. It was an amazing aircraft. It’s a shame that it has not found a home in a museum, although I will say, it was HUGE, so it would have been a challenge to exhibit.
Gotta wonder about the environmental impact of 1,400 lbs. of lithium ion batteries being lost somewhere no one really knows where.
It’s Gulf of America Russ, get over it.
Tommy, Freedom Fries! LOL
And no one has asked the question “Why did the Solar Impulse 2 lose power?”
Bravo, Paul.