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Russian businessman plans to build sailplane to fly around the globe nonstop in 5 days

This would be a world record in the range, duration and altitude of a flight, according to Viktor Vekselberg
Viktor Vekselberg Alexander Sherbak/TASS
Viktor Vekselberg
© Alexander Sherbak/TASS

ST. PETERSBURG, April 24. /TASS/. Russian business executive and head of Renova Group Viktor Vekselberg told the Russian president on Monday about his plans to design within two years an airborne vehicle that will be able to fly nonstop around the globe in 120 hours at an altitude of 16 kilometers.

"We are facing this task for the coming two years, and we are confident that we will cope with it," Viktor Vekselberg said at a session of the Russian Geographical Society’s guardianship board.

"We will build an airborne vehicle that will rise to an altitude of 16 kilometers and will make a non-stop flight around the globe in 120 hours," said Vekselberg, who is president of the Skolkovo Foundation that invests in innovations. According to the business executive, the air vehicle is expected to operate on solar batteries and technologies that make it possible to use solar energy in these projects already exist.

He said this would be a world record in the range, duration and altitude of a flight.

Vekselberg said the previous attempt to set a world record was made by the US, but the flight took 560 hours and necessitated 15 landings of the airborne vehicle. "All fundamentally new solutions have already been achieved, we have started carrying out the project. We will present the schedule of the way we see the implementation of the project and we hope very much that the Russian Geographical Society will support this initiative," Vekselberg told the president.

Renova Group is a stakeholder and strategic investor in a number of world-class companies.