World Record Balloon Flight From Japan to North America
Introduction
Unlike
the propane-fueled hybrid balloons called "Rozieres" that circled
the earth in recent years, traditional "straight gas" balloons
are the stuff of legend.
As featured in Jules Verne's, "Around the World in 80 days" old-fashioned 'gas' balloons, filled with helium and without the benefit of burners, pit man against the elements at a very basic level...with just bags of sand…and a healthy dash of boldness, as the "fuel".
The longest distance flight ever made in a "gas" balloon occurred almost a quarter-century ago. In 1981, four men lifted off in their helium filled balloon, Double Eagle V, from Nagashima, Japan and landed three and a half days later in California. They traveled 5,208 miles on the first-ever trans-Pacific flight by a balloon. To this day, that crew still holds the world distance record for all gas balloons.
Until now!
A team of internationally renowned ballooning experts, including several members of Steve Fossett's "Spirit of Freedom" global balloon support crew, has built a giant new straight gas balloon and taken up the challenge of capturing the world record.
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Chief pilot Troy Bradley, with over 50 world records under his belt and co-pilot Peter Cuneo plan to navigate their craft more than 6,000 miles. If successful, they may also capture the world duration record for gas balloons, set in 1978 by the Double Eagle II on a 5 day flight across the Atlantic.
A lot has changed in the past 20+ years, and our team will use much more sophisticated equipment and meteorological trajectory models than were available to the Double Eagle V crew. These improvements will allow Celestial Eagle to fly from Japan, across the Pacific, landing perhaps as far as the eastern USA.
The balloon is presently named "The Celestial Eagle." A title sponsor may rename the expedition as desired…to include the company name or a product and appropriate logos.
