Solar Plane Almost Completes Record-Setting Flight
A Riverside County man nearly completed a record-setting, transcontinental flight in a solar-powered airplane Monday, but was forced to land nine miles short of his final destination.
Pilot Eric Raymond, 33, of Lake Elsinore, set his homemade aircraft down in a farmer’s field after an ominous storm front rolled in and blocked out the sun.
Klaus Savier, a member of the flight crew, said conditions were so poor Monday that Raymond was flying just 1,500 feet above the woods of coastal North Carolina.
“It is treacherous terrain,” Savier said. “There’s a lot of swampland and a lot of trees and Eric says he can swim but he can’t climb trees.”
Raymond is expected to complete the final leg of his landmark journey and land today at Kitty Hawk, N.C., the birthplace of engine-powered aviation.
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