>>Bertrand Piccard: Good afternoon to everyone.
Let me start by a question.
Who are we?
You know, in the entrance of the conference
hall it's written, "Everyone is looking for
new things all the time."
And actually I'm not sure it's true.
I believe that maybe here in this room, we
are all looking for new things.
We are curious and until we find our balance
into the unknown.
But so many people in life don't trust life
at all.
So many people are afraid of the unknown,
afraid of the doubts, afraid of the question
marks.
So what do they do?
They try to find completely other tools than
curiosity.
They try to find control, power, speed, because
this helps them to fight against the doubts
and the question marks.
This helps them to fight against the uncertainty,
against the changes, against everything that
can threaten their comfort zone.
So what I love so much in ballooning actually
is the fact that when you fly a balloon, you
learn exactly the other thing, exactly the
opposite, exactly the contrary.
You learn to have no power because you have
no engine.
You learn to have no control because you are
pushed by the wind.
And you learn to also not even have your own
speed and direction because you go with the
wind in the direction and the speed of the
wind toward the unknown.
So you have to understand that a balloon flight
is permanent crisis management because you
know exactly where you came from but you have
absolutely no idea where you go to.
[ Laughter ]
>>Bertrand Piccard: A little bit like in life.
In life, we also have all these dreams, goals,
objectives, targets, visions.
And how often, honestly, can you really reach
them?
Well, the interest in ballooning is the fact
that when you are going in the wrong direction
with your balloon, you can do something because
you learn that the atmosphere is made up of
several different layers of wind which all
have a different direction and a different
speed.
So if the wind is wrong, your own freedom,
your only responsibility is to change altitude.
Change altitude in order to find better winds
that have a better direction.
So instead of trying to fight horizontally,
you can try to move up and down to go left
and right.
And I believe this is one of the tools we
need in life if we want to teach others to
be curious, to be innovators, to be pioneers
and explorers.
We have to learn how to change altitude in
the winds of life, psychologically, philosophically,
spiritually, of course, also, not to forget
socially, professionally, educationally.
But for this, of course, we have to be practical.
If I'm just standing here to say, "Oh, we
have to change altitude in the winds of life
to find better directions," probably the people
who invited me here would think that's a little
theoretically, maybe poetical but useless,
really useless.
So let's be practical.
If you want to change altitude in a balloon,
what do you do?
Well, you draw ballast.
You throw overboard everything that you don't
need anymore.
It can be old equipment, it can be empty fuel
tanks, it can be water, food, it can be bags
of sand, everything that can help you to be
lighter and to climb.
And I believe this is exactly what we have
to learn in life.
Drop ballast.
Because if we read the checklist of our life,
we see that we have a huge lot of ballast
on board.
Certitudes, safety, habits, convictions, exclamation
marks, paradigms, dogmas, common assumptions.
Well, all these things that usually we hold
in our hands very strongly because we believe
it makes us stronger.
But it's not true.
It doesn't make us stronger.
It just makes us heavier.
And if we want to be able to catch the right
directions in life, to get the right influence,
to get the right solutions, the right answers,
the right strategies, we need to throw this
overboard.
And what does it mean very practically?
It means that we have to be honest enough
with ourselves to analyze what we deeply believe
and try exactly the opposite.
Maybe if you remember one sentence of my speech
it would be this one.
If we want to be creative, if we want to solve
a crisis, if we want to invent, if we want
to be curious, we need to analyze very honestly
what we deeply believe and try exactly the
opposite.
I'm not saying the opposite will always be
better.
What I'm saying is that instead of being always
in one line, in one dimension, in one direction,
when we imagine that the opposite maybe could
be achieved, then we have a huge bunch of
different strategies, opportunities, and tools.
And if we do that, what will be the future
at every second.
The future will be all the lines going in
every possible direction at every possible
altitude in three dimensions.
Of course we never know where these lines
are going.
And this is exploration.
Exploration is not just the north pole and
the south pole.
It's also life itself.
And when I flew around the world nonstop with
Brian Jones in 1999, I was so surprised to
see that at the end, what was the goal I was
looking for started to be only a step to do
something else.
And this picture wasn't there to show you
our smile because we were the winners.
No, it's to show you what was left in the
last fuel tank in terms of propane, liquid
propane.
We took off with 3,700 kilos, almost 8,000
pounds of liquid propane.
We landed with 80 pounds.
Almost a failure.
Just enough to succeed.
And this is when I really felt in my gut what
it means to be dependent on fossil energy.
Not a theory because when you're out of fuel
in the balloon, you just down from the sky.
And then I started to think, okay, for the
next time I fly around the world, I don't
want to be dependent on fuel anymore.
I want to be able to fly forever, with no
limits.
And when the capsule of my balloon was finally
brought to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
in Washington together with the big milestones
of aviation, I started to reflect about all
these big achievements of the 20th century.
And it became obvious for me that nothing
was a new idea.
Nothing.
Flying, climbing the highest mountains, going
to the stratosphere, nothing was a new idea.
No.
Everything was just a dream of human kind
for thousands of years.
But it was never achieved because the mythology
was saying that only the gods were allowed
to fly.
Only the gods were allowed to sit on the highest
mountains.
So why were all these big achievements happening
in 20th century?
Because people started to throw out all the
ballast, throw overboard all the ballast of
the paradigms and common assumptions and start
just to achieve things that were considered
to be impossible but actually were completely
possible.
So what is left in the future in terms of
pioneering spirit if we want to continue the
curiosity of exploring life in the future?
Well, the planet has been explored and conquered.
So maybe now we can do something else.
Maybe at another altitude.
Something like improving the quality of life
of human kind, fighting poverty, achieving
sustainability, technologies to save the natural
resources of our planet.
And this is when started for me this vision
of a zero fuel airplane, an airplane which
could fly day and night without a single drop
of fuel.
With just the sun giving enough energy on
the wings to run electrical motors and load
the batteries in order to have this plane
flying during the day and flying during the
night.
So the plane exists, and already in a couple
of minutes we'll explain to you how it was
built.
A plane bigger and lighter than anything in
the past.
But the symbol of it is so important.
If this airplane is too heavy, if the technologies
are not optimized, if it uses too much energy,
if the pilot flies in an unsustainable way
or unstable way, it will use too much energy
and the plane will crash before the end of
the night with empty batteries.
But if you think it's exactly what happens
for our world, if we don't implement the technologies
to protect the natural resources of our planet.
If we don't manage to save energy, to act
sustainable, we'll never transmit the planet
to the next generation without a major crash.
So the technologies that we use on Solar Impulse
are technologies that can be used everywhere.
And in a rough calculation, you can say that
if the same technologies were really implemented
on a global scale, already today we could
divide by two the energy consumption of the
world and produce half of the rest with renewable
sources.
And, actually, this is exactly what we stand
for with Andre and with our entire team at
Solar Impulse: Demonstrate what these technologies
can do.
So we have been doing a lot of flight missions
over Europe, invited by the European Parliament
to try to fight against the skeptical people
who try to get back in the past in terms of
all technologies, all-consuming engines and
things like that.
The year later we were invited by the king
of Monaco to promote the biggest solar power
program in the world in the south of Marrakech.
And this year we have the honor of crossing
the United States from San Francisco to New
York.
But it could be Andre flying, it could be
me flying.
At the end the goal is really to catch the
awareness of the media, catch the awareness
of the political world, in order to really
be an ambassador for renewable energy, an
ambassador for all these clean technologies.
And for years and years, it has been so boring
to speak about protection of the environment
that was expensive and too much CO2 and nobody
knew what to do with the CO2.
I think we have to make it exciting.
We have to inspire people.
I believe that the greatest adventure we can
achieve is clearly this adventure of sustainability
where we simultaneously protect the environment
and create jobs and bring new products on
the market and sustain growth of the industry.
And maybe like this, the people themselves
will be inspired also in terms of exploration
and in terms of pioneering spirit.
Because how many of these people who are watching
our airplane flying really understand that
they can do the same in their own life?
In terms of technology, but also in terms
of spirit.
You know, for some people, life is easy.
It's transparent.
You look out the window, and you see the view.
For a lot of people, it's the other way around.
It's like in this other picture that I took
during the balloon flight around the world.
Notice this is a porthole of the capsule.
It is frozen by the moisture of the night
and on the other side you have a rising sun.
Well, very often we have to go through the
ice to find the light.
And if we are not curious enough, we'll never
do it.
And what's the result?
So many people will tell you it's better to
suffer in the ice we know rather than to take
the risk of going through the ice.
So if we want to inspire people, if we want
to really bring them to be curious, to be
pioneers, we have to help them.
And I believe that's our responsibility.
We're a privileged group of people here and
we have to show to the rest of the world that
they can do the same, that they can be the
same, that they can reach the same results
if they manage to throw some ballast overboard,
change altitude, and be influenced by better
winds in life.
Good luck to all.
[ Applause ]
>>Andre Borschberg: Good afternoon to everyone.
So what's so special with the Solar Impulse
airplane?
What's really special is that this is the
first and only airplane in the world which
has an unlimited endurance, can fly day and
night, many days in a row, even weeks.
And why can we do that?
Two reason.
The first one is that we collect the energy
directly on the airplane from the sun, and
we don't have to embark any energy from the
ground.
And second, I think even more important, this
is the most energy-efficient airplane ever
built.
To be able to fully day and night, we had
to drastically reduce the energy consumption
of the airplane.
And when we did the feasibility study that's
already ten years ago, we quickly understood
that the project was not just building a new
airplane but really about energy savings.
And so this word "efficiency" became the driving
dimension of the entire project.
And when we talk about efficiency, of course
we talk about aerodynamic efficiency.
That's why, in fact, this airplane is so big,
the size of a 747.
The wing span of a 747 gives more lift, less
drag, more benefit, less losses.
Just simply less energy to fly.
And when you have this surface, of course
you can integrate a lot of energy -- a lot
of solar cells, about 2,000 square feet.
And if you calculate how much energy you can
collect through an entire day and you average
this energy over 24 hours, because we fly
day and night, the power we have available
is the power of a scooter.
So if you take physics, mathematics, aerodynamics,
you can, of course, calculate how much weight
you can carry in this airplane.
And the maximum weight we could afford is
the weight of a car.
So that was the starting point.
Building an airplane the size of a 747 but
with weight not exceeding the weight of a
car.
And of course our first reaction with Bertrand
was to go to the airplane manufacturers, sea
plane manufacturers and the people who know
how to build very light.
And their reaction was very straightforward.
They told us, "Your project is impossible."
And so we decided to develop our own solution.
So what we had was a very clear vision to
fly around the world with a solar-powered
airplane.
I think we had a clear idea, that was to build
one of the largest -- or an airplane the size
of a very large transport airplane with a
very low weight and also we had a very clear
purpose.
Demonstrate that existing technologies can
save energy.
And if we can do it in an airplane, we should
be able to do it on the ground.
It was interesting also to see that I think
we had three advantages when we started the
project.
The first one was that we had no cash.
It's quite obvious for a startup, but in our
case, I think it was helpful because it was
helpful not to push us in the first design
solution that we could have found.
Why?
Because we had the second advantage.
We had no idea about how to build an airplane.
Bertrand is a medical doctor.
I am an entrepreneur, engineering background
but no experience in the aviation world.
The example that illustrates that is the company
that we choose to manufacture the biggest
structure part of the airplane, the company
specialized in boat building.
Never did any work for the aviation world.
But I guess maybe the advantage was unlike
the aviation industry, they didn't know that
this project was impossible.
Well, the third advantage was that we had
no infrastructure, no team.
So we had the choice, in fact, to develop
our own strategy.
And the team was crucial.
And I focused really on two -- on two characteristics.
I mean, the first one was to try to get really
independent-minded people, and of course the
second one was to get the best talents.
What I ended with was a very diversified team.
Different cultures, different languages, different
backgrounds, different educations.
It was not a team.
I mean, I ended up with a group of people.
And I spent I think the first two years really
doing mostly conflict resolution, trying to
build bridges between these people and help
them to communicate.
I think if I develop a new activity today,
it would be around couple therapy.
[ Laughter ]
The third thing which was important to do
was to develop the right corporate culture,
I mean the right philosophy.
In our case was never to be satisfied with
the first solution.
We knew that we had to push the limits to
get to this very low weight.
And I mean, in aviation, you can't cheat.
If the airplane is too heavy, it doesn't fly.
In our case, if the airplane was slightly
too heavy, we couldn't make it through the
night.
Every part that we do, of course I calculated.
If you take the ribs of the wing, that's very
good examples.
And then they are mechanically tested.
And when you do a mechanical test, normally
if it doesn't work you are very happy.
If our case, we were not because it meant
that potentially they were too heavy.
So it was brought back to the design board
until we got, in fact, the right solution
there.
And that's how we could build this airplane,
that was how we could fly day and night in
2010, fly to Paris, to Brussels, and this
year to bring this airplane to the United
States and do the flight from San Francisco
to New York.
But now we have to build a second airplane.
The airplane that you have seen is a test
airplane.
It's a flying laboratory, if I can put it
this way.
To do the flight around the world, which is
scheduled in 2015, we need an airplane which
is able to travel which is reliable as we
need to cross oceans and this crossing will
take many days, many nights.
So we have to push the limits further.
And we have built the second wing, or the
wing of the second airplane.
What you see here is what we call the main
spar of the wing.
That's really the backbone of the airplane.
It's one year of design, it's one year of
construction, it's 15 people, 60 queue cycles.
So it looks very simple, but it's extremely
complex.
And this has, ultimately, also, has to be
tested to check the quality.
And the test is extremely -- I'll say difficult
and ties very big suspense.
You can see from the face of the lead engineer
what the tension can be.
We hear some small cracks, we are about 50%
of the load, and he is really worried.
And in some ways, he is right to be worried
because when we reach hundred percent, that's
exactly what happen.
A huge shock.
And these big parts of 240 feet literally
explodes.
So a major shock for us and, of course, for
the engineers, because immediately you understand
that you have one year of delay with all the
financial associated cost.
But at the same time, we also discovered that
there's an opportunity.
An opportunity to learn, of course, about
technologies, an opportunity to learn about
the team, the team behavior and how to use,
in fact, such a problem to bring the team
even more together and develop further the
team spirit.
The other opportunity was at the project level.
You know, we started by saying we lost a year,
and instead of saying we lost a year, we're
starting to understand that we gained a year.
We had one more year available.
And we could use this year to bring this airplane
to the United States, which we did, to do
the flight from San Francisco to New York,
what the pioneers used to do in the early
part of the last century.
And I think if we -- I believe it would have
been and it will be difficult to do the flight
around the world, scheduled in 18 months,
if we would not have done this flight across
the USA.
We gained so much experience out of it.
I'm often asked, you know, "What is it to
fly this airplane?"
I can tell you it's absolutely fantastic.
Can you imagine that you can take off with
empty batteries, you can climb to 30,000 feet,
the altitude of the airliners, you can fly
the entire day, and at the same time you can
fill up the batteries.
So in the evening, you have the choice.
Either you land and you give this energy to
the grid or you continue through the night,
and day after day, therefore.
But when you fly so long, people ask me, "How
is it, you know, to be in a small cockpit
for 24 hours?"
And our answer is to say, you know, "We enjoy
the present moment."
And in some ways that's true because if you
start to calculate how many hours are left
-- 23, 22, 21, 20 -- I tell you it's a real
nightmare.
And let me share with you one experience I
had during the flight, the last flight we
did from Washington to New York this summer.
Took off at 5:00 in the morning.
The plane was to land at 2:00 at JFK.
At midday, or just after midday, a helicopter
came to make some pictures, and the helicopter
told me immediately that I was losing part
of the under cover of the wing.
Major -- potentially major problem.
Shock for me, of course, but it was even worsened
when the picture was sent to the engineers
and the comments from the engineers was that
they were surprised that the wing did not
disintegrate yet.
[ Laughter ]
>>Andre Borschberg: So I was remembering,
you know, what I was telling the entire morning.
We have lot of interviews from the cockpit
with different medias, and I was saying all
the time, "You know, what's great in this
airplane is that we have the time, and we
have the time to enjoy the present moment."
And what I did was to go through the worst
scenario, which was the disintegration of
the airplane and a forced bailout.
How to get out, how to jettison the cockpit,
how to jump out of the airplane, how to open
the parachute, how to get in the water, how
to get rid of the parachute.
And I felt suddenly that I was prepared and
I told myself, I mean, "If you have to do
that, you better enjoy it because you will
not have another chance for that."
[ Laughter ]
>>Andre Borschberg: And when I did that, interestingly,
I became very serene and very calm up to the
landing at JFK.
And, you know, I'm part of the small group
of people who love JFK, compared to some other
people we heard this morning.
[ Laughter ]
>>Andre Borschberg: But what I learned from
that is that, you know, going through the
most difficult scenario step by step in detail,
I mean, it really took my anxiety away and
brought back the confidence I needed to complete
the voyage.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
>>Campbell Brown: Bertrand has one thing to
say before I take over.
>>Bertrand Piccard: Just a little note to
explain to you why we have this jacket today.
It's the last time we're wearing this jacket
without the name of Google, because we are
announcing today a high-level partnership
for the airplane that's going to fly around
the world with the tools of Google in order
to help us to communicate our message much
further to the political world, the university
world, and the public.
So from now on, it's going to be google.com/SolarImpulse.
Thank you to everyone.
[ Applause ]
