This is very cool.  It’s an aviation first and hopefully will pave the way for more electric powered flight.  The flight started from Abu Dhabi and will circumnavigate the globe, ending in Abu Dhabi once again. As I write this, this leg of the flight is a very long stretch over open water, so very little margin for error.  Takeoff was June 20th in Japan (after being stuck there for weeks due to weather) and will land in Hawaii 5 days later.  The aircraft uses 26kw of power during the day, with 25kw additional power being used to charge the batteries.  At night, the aircraft cruises on batteries until the sun comes up again.

You can watch this LIVE – click here.  The cockpit video is really neat, and the “widgets” on the right hand side let you take a close (and live) look at everything from the state of the battery charge, to the state of the pilot’s “emotional charge” 🙂

Here is what the “energy” widget shows right now: