CRI听力:Solar Impulse 2's Flight to Nanjing Subject to Weather

Since the flight landed in the city of Chongqing on March 31, the plane has postponed the onward journey to Nanjing several times due to bad weather.

Its planned departure for Nanjing after a few hours of being grounded in Chongqing was cancelled.

Geng Xiulin, the only Chinese with the plane's Monaco control center team, says that, in a marked difference from fuel-powered planes, the Solar Impulse 2 requires very strict conditions in order to embark on a journey.

"Most fuel-powered aircraft are metal-structured, but the Solar Impulse aircraft is made of carbon fiber, a very light and fragile material. So the plane cannot fly in the rain or amid turbulence. As the aircraft is small but with long wings, the pilot would not be able to control the plane in the turbulence, especially when it comes across convection currents. So the airflow of every point in the route should be analyzed."

The pilots were expected to fly last week, however due to less than ideal weather conditions, the flight was delayed.

Bertrand Piccard, one of the two pilots and co-founder of Solar Impulse, said the delay is due to crosswinds along the flight route that could be damaging to the plane and he is expecting a journey next Tuesday.

"We are waiting for the good weather. Tuesday we will be hoping to do the flight that we had to cancel, the evening we canceled because there was too much cross wind in Nanjing. And our plane need very calm weather. So the next tour we believe to see is, maybe, next Tuesday, and we will see what to happen."

For the sixth leg of the trip, Bertrand is set to fly the fuel-less airplane for about 1,200 kilometres over about 20 hours.

Weather conditions had earlier delayed Solar Impulse-2 in Ahmedabad in India and Mandalay in Myanmar.

During the coming months, Piccard and Borschberg will cross the Pacific Ocean and stop in the USA, North Africa or southern Europe before returning to Abu Dhabi to complete the plane's circumnavigation of the world.

For CRI, I'm Luo Bin.