Live video streaming on the website monitoring his progress www.solarimpulse.com showed the pilot, wearing an orange jumpsuit, breathing into an oxygen mask.
“From Mission Control Center in #Monaco the engineers are helping me to perform Oxygen Mask tests from #SolarImpulse,” he tweeted. Borschberg had earlier attempted to give media interviews before calling his wife, according to the live feed. Shortly before takeoff, the 63-year-old pilot tweeted that the “challenge to come is real for me > the airplane”.
The wingspan of the one-seater plane, known as the Si2, is slightly bigger than that of a jumbo jet, but its weight is around that of a family car.
From Muscat, it will make 12 stops on an epic journey spread over five months, with a total flight time of around 25 days.
It will cross the Arabian Sea to India before heading on to Myanmar, China, Hawaii and New York.
Landings are also earmarked for the midwestern United States and either southern Europe or North Africa, depending on weather conditions.
The longest single leg will see a lone pilot fly non-stop for five days and nights across the Pacific Ocean between Nanjing, China and Hawaii, a distance of 8,500 kilometres (5,270 miles).
The plane is powered by more than 17,000 solar cells built into wings that, at 72 metres (236 feet), are longer than a jumbo and approaching those of an Airbus A380 superjumbo.
Thanks to an innovative design, the lightweight carbon fibre aircraft weighs only 2.3 tonnes, about the same as a family 4X4 and less than one percent of the weight of the A380.
The Si2 is the first solar-powered aircraft able to stay aloft for several days and nights.
The propeller craft has four 17.5 horsepower electric motors with rechargeable lithium batteries.
It will travel at 50-100 kilometres per hour, with the slower speeds at night to prevent the batteries from draining too quickly.
“This airplane is conceived to stay airborne days and nights in a row, maybe a week, so we hope that we make these very long flights because this is the demonstration of the vision of flying solar power with no fuel forever,“ said Piccard.
It is scheduled to arrive back in Abu Dhabi in July.
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