First piloted solar-powered night flight

It may sound as useful as a solar-powered torch, but an aircraft fuelled by the sun has accomplished its first ever manned night flight.

The aircraft, built by Swiss company Solar Impulse, also broke the records for highest altitude and longest duration for a piloted solar flight.

The craft took off at 6:51 local time yesterday morning from the Payerne airbase in Switzerland. André Borschberg, one of the cofounders of the project and the craft's sole pilot, guided its gradual ascent during the day.

Its power was collected by 12,000 solar panels built into its 63-metre wingspan. During the hours of bright sun, batteries siphoned off some energy to power the plane through the night.

The craft climbed to a height of 8564 metres, which it reached about ten hours into the flight. When the sun began to fade around 7:30 in the evening, the plane began a slow descent to around 1500 metres, where it stayed from 11 pm until sunrise.

After 26 hours in the plane, Borschberg landed it at 9:00 this morning.

This is the last milestone for Solar Impulse's prototype aircraft. Its first was the "flea hop" of last December: a short flight around one metre from the ground.

The company's dreams for the next plane are bigger. To be constructed in 2011, its objectives are to cross the Atlantic, and then to circumnavigate the globe on solar power alone, by 2013. For such missions, let's hope they consider a more adventurous name for the plane than its current moniker: HB-SIB.