AIAC SALUTES EXPLORERS CLUB MEDALIST DR. BERTRAND PICCARD ON THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION’S PATRONAGE OF CLIMATE IMPULSE
Farnborough, Hampshire, England, UK — July 19, 2026 — At the Farnsborough International Air Show, American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) proudly salutes Dr. Bertrand Piccard, explorer, aeronaut, Honorary Director of The Explorers Club, and recipient of The Explorers Medal, on the European Commission’s decision to grant its official patronage to Climate Impulse, the pioneering project he leads to achieve the world’s first non-stop, zero-emission flight around the globe, powered entirely by green hydrogen.
Announced in Brussels, the patronage was conferred by Stéphane Séjourné, Executive Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Prosperity and Industrial Strategy. It marks a signal endorsement of European ingenuity and climate leadership, recognizing that Climate Impulse — led by Dr. Piccard together with composite-materials engineer Raphaël Dinelli — advances the Union’s shared agenda of decarbonization, innovation, and industrial sovereignty. Set to take off in 2030, the aircraft is conceived to demonstrate that emission-free flight is not a distant abstraction, but an engineering challenge that can be met with technologies available today.
For AIAC, the honor carries a special resonance. AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie serves as a Trustee and Poet Laureate of The Explorers Club, and AIAC and its affiliates, Bradford Space, SuperAlloy, Titanium Fabrication Corporation, Vermont Aerospace Industries, and Canadian Kraft Paper Industries are Partners of the Explorers Club and Sponsors of its Annual Dinner, Chapters’ Dinner, Climate Week, Oceans Week and special events and programs throughout the year.
AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie stated:
“In Dr. Piccard — a Member and Honorary Director of the Explorers Club, recipient of its highest honor, and heir to a lineage of exploration whose grandfather, Auguste Piccard, was himself an Explorers Medalist — AIAC recognizes a kindred devotion to science, discovery, and the welfare of humanity. For three generations, the Piccard family has turned what the world called impossible into what the world now takes for granted.”
“To circle the earth without a single drop of fuel, and without a single gram of carbon, is to attempt what a cautious age calls unachievable — and to prove, once again, that the word impossible is merely a challenge awaiting its explorer. Bertrand Piccard has crossed that frontier before, borne aloft first by the wind and then by the sun, and now he sets his course by hydrogen and by the force of his intellect and will.
I take a special and personal pride in this moment, for it renews a bond of friendship first forged at the Explorers Club. Indeed, at the 120th Explorers Club Annual Dinner on April 20, 2024, I was proud ot welcome Bertrand, seated at my side, to join with my my distinguished guests, Ambassador Philip Lader, Governor Asa Hutchinson, Dr. Joel Myers, Justin Rockefeller, Dennis Flannery, Gordon Winston, Phillip Palumbo, and Abe Wellington. Bertrand, as the keynote speaker of the evening, delivered the most inspirational keynote address in recent memory, reflecting on the indomitable drive of explorers who pierce the frontiers of science against all odds. Reminding everyone in that room that the impossible is merely the not-yet-attempted, he met with a thunderous, sustained, standing ovation from the 1,600 guests in the ballroom.
We at AIAC salute him, for the men and women of our companies are proud to manufacture the critical aerospace components and materials that carry aviation and spaceflight alike toward the heavens. We know that every horizon crossed begins with the courage to attempt it. The European Commission’s patronage honors not a man, machine, and mission alone, but a conviction we share with Dr. Piccard and with the Explorers Club we are proud to serve: that innovation, placed in the service of humanity, can lift the whole world higher.
To Bertrand Piccard, and to all who dare to make the impossible ordinary, we offer our admiration, our congratulations, and our confidence in the flight to come.”
For further information, please see: https://climateimpulse.org/newsroom
About Climate Impulse
Climate Impulse is a pioneering project led by Dr. Bertrand Piccard, explorer and pioneer of clean technologies, and Raphaël Dinelli, navigator and composite-materials engineer. Its goal is to circumnavigate the globe non-stop and emission-free in 2030 aboard a green-hydrogen-powered aircraft — the world’s first zero-emission flight around the world. Heir to Solar Impulse, the project champions the vision of a clean and efficient world in which innovation is placed at the service of sustainability, and in which the technologies of decarbonization become engines of industrial competitiveness and human progress.
Aviation is widely regarded as one of the sectors hardest to decarbonize, and it is precisely there that Climate Impulse seeks to demonstrate credibility and ambition. To achieve a non-stop round-the-world flight on green hydrogen, the program must integrate and optimize technologies never before combined in an aircraft of this scale and mission profile, advancing hydrogen storage, fuel-cell integration, energy efficiency, lightweight composite structures, and aircraft-systems architecture — innovations whose applications extend well beyond aviation. Conceived to prove that emission-free flight is not a distant abstraction but an engineering challenge that can be met with technologies available today, Climate Impulse is supported by Main Partners Syensqo, OCP Group, and Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), together with official partners Breitling and Orange, and now carries the official patronage of the European Commission.
For further information, please see: https://climateimpulse.org
About Dr. Bertrand Piccard
Dr. Bertrand Piccard is a Swiss explorer, psychiatrist, and environmentalist, and the scion of a legendary family of scientist-adventurers: his grandfather, Auguste Piccard, was the first to reach the stratosphere by balloon, and his father, Jacques Piccard, descended with Don Walsh to the deepest point of the ocean, the Mariana Trench, aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960. Bertrand Piccard has carried that legacy of “famous firsts” into his own generation.
In 1999, with Brian Jones, he completed the first non-stop balloon flight around the world aboard Breitling Orbiter 3. He then conceived, chaired, and co-piloted Solar Impulse, achieving in 2016 the first circumnavigation of the globe by a solar-powered aircraft, flown without a single drop of fuel. He is the founder and chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation, which has identified more than a thousand profitable solutions for protecting the environment.
A recipient of the Legion of Honour and the Olympic Order, and of the highest distinctions of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the National Geographic Society, and The Explorers Club — whose Explorers Medal, the Club’s highest honor, he received in 2017 — Dr. Piccard serves today as an Honorary Director of The Explorers Club. A United Nations Goodwill Ambassador and Special Advisor on renewables and energy efficiency to the European Commission, he now leads Climate Impulse, his boldest challenge yet: to circle the earth non-stop and emission-free on green hydrogen.
For further information, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Piccard
About American Industrial Acquisition Corporation
American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) is a diversified industrial group with manufacturing, distribution, and administrative sites in 24 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia-New Zealand. AIAC has acquired and grown non-core subsidiaries and divisions of Boeing, Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Johnson Controls, Merck, Pfizer, Astellas, Visteon, Carlyle, KKR, Ahlstrom, Novellis, Tolko, Groupe Suez, Groupe Rexel, and many other leading multinational corporations.
AIAC companies serve companies and governmental entities worldwide in all major sectors, including aviation, space, defense, automotive, truck, rail, marine, petrochemical, solar, nuclear, civil engineering, logistics, agriculture, infrastructure, commercial construction, mining, dredging, disaster relief, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals. In addition, AIAC companies are exclusive, authorized distributors of leading branded industrial products and serve as critical suppliers for the construction of major airports, schools, hospitals, performing arts and sports centers, offices and hotels throughout Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. AIAC is a major manufacturer of materials for green houses globally, building, street, and highway signage in Europe, and a distributor of electrical products throughout France.
Of note, AIAC purchased Boeing Canada in 2005 and has produced over 10,000 unique components for every Boeing jet plane ever since, reliably serving Boeing from manufacturing facilities in North America. A leader in ultra-high precision jet engine component manufacturing, AIAC companies produce 2,200 fan blades for each jet engine produced by GE, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and Honeywell.
AIAC companies actively support exploration into outer space, manufacturing critical components for launching and propelling spacecraft and satellites. AIAC customers in this sector include NASA, SpaceX, the European Space Agency, Blue Origin, and Boeing. AIAC companies also lead in the design and manufacture of undersea umbilical cables for worldwide oceanographic research.
AIAC companies produce the critical automotive wire and cable for Tesla, GM, Ford, Chrysler-Fiat, Toyota, and Nissan and for the New York and Atlanta Subways. In connection with its kraft paper manufacturing interests in Canada and the US, AIAC sustainably manages 22 million acres of Manitoba, Canada forestland, an area equivalent in size to the nation of Hungary. AIAC affiliate, Metallwarenfabrik Gemmingen GmbH, located in Germany, designs, manufactures and distributes high performance, emergency portable power generators utilized in global conflict zones and during major natural disasters.
For further information, see: www.aiac.com
About AIAC Philanthropies
AIAC and the AIAC Foundation support a wide range of nonprofit, nonsectarian, bipartisan organizations which promote international conflict resolution, disaster relief, economic development, environmental sustainability, exploration, and the performing arts. The exploration-focused nonprofit organizations which they actively support include The Explorers Club, the National Geographic Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Mission Blue, the Jane Goodall Institute, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Space Society, and the United States Space Foundation.
AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie is a Member of the Board of Trustees of The Explorers Club, its Poet Laureate, and a Member of its Annual Dinner Committee. AIAC and its affiliates, Bradford Space, Canadian Kraft Paper Industries, SuperAlloy Manufacturing Solutions, and Champlain Cable are Partners of The Explorers Club and Sponsors of Oceans Week.
For further information, see: www.aiac.com | https://www.aiac.com/our-values
About The Explorers Club
The Explorers Club is an American-based, international, multidisciplinary professional society with the mission of promoting and supporting scientific exploration and field study on land, sea, and in outer space. The club was founded in New York City in 1904 and has served as a meeting point for explorers and scientists worldwide. Members of the club have been the first to explore the North Pole, South Pole, Mount Everest, the Mariana Trench, and to walk on the Moon. The club’s notable current members or honorees include Buzz Aldrin, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Prince Albert II of Monaco, Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia, Grand Duke Guillaume V of Luxembourg, Sir Richard Branson, Ken Griffin, James Cameron, Ray Dalio, and Wendy Schmidt.
In years past, prominent members have included Sir Ernest Shackleton, President Theodore Roosevelt, Sir Edmund Hillary, Amelia Earhart, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Jim Lovell, Thor Heyerdahl, Walter Cronkite, Prince Philip – Duke of Edinburgh, and Jane Goodall. The Explorers Club’s historic clubhouse, at 46 East 70th Street in New York City, is a museum and monument to the “Famous Firsts,” the greatest explorers and expeditions of all time.
For further information, see: www.explorers.org
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