Aurélien Fleurot // Photo credit: JOEL SAGET / AFP 9:23 a.m., February 9, 2024

Explorer Bertrand Piccard returns to the forefront with a new challenge. After having traveled around the world with his solar plane, the Solar Impulse, he is launching a new challenge: to travel around the world in eight days, in a hydrogen plane. To achieve this, he will be supported by Raphaël Dinelli.

After Solar Impulse, explorer Bertrand Piccard is launching a new challenge: to travel around the world in a hydrogen plane in eight days, non-stop! And if takeoff is planned for 2028, the crucial phase of the project begins this year, with the construction of the plane. 

>> Find Europe 1 Matin in replay and podcast here

A plane tribute to Saint-Exupéry

With its 34 meter wingspan, its two large side fuselages to accommodate the hydrogen tanks and electric motors and its resemblance to the P38 Lightning, in homage to Saint-Exupéry who disappeared in 1944 aboard the American aircraft, Bertrand Piccard's project will not go unnoticed. 

But it is towards the future and technological innovation that the two co-pilots are turned, Bertrand Piccard, who is accompanied in this adventure by Raphaël Dinelli, former winner of the Transat Jacques Vabre. “Taking on board two tanks of eleven cubic meters of liquid hydrogen. This has never been done in aviation. Here, we come directly from space technologies,” explains the explorer at the microphone of Europe 1. 

>>READ ALSO - 

Successful world tour for Solar Impulse: the “immense happiness” of Bertrand Piccard

“It’s the Holy Grail”

Construction of the aircraft will take place until 2025, before beginning full-scale tests. In 2028, "we will have to do these 43,000 kilometers, because it is the Holy Grail, non-stop around the world, without takeoff assistance. There are only two planes in the history of aviation that have succeeded to achieve this feat using four and eight tonnes of kerosene respectively. So it's still a huge challenge," he concludes. 

But with Syensqo, from Solvay Airbus, Ariane or CapGemini, the two co-pilots are well supported to succeed in their challenge.