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THE GREAT NON-STOP AROUND THE WORLD BALLOON RACE
Chapter One - April 24, 1998 New Years Eve, my good wife, Marie, laboriously loaded me into our car and drove out to one of our Northern suburbs. We found a good spot to park overlooking the Nimtz Quarry and waited for a chap to liftoff in a balloon who would attempt to fly non-stop around the world without refueling. Kevin Uliassi, an architect originally from the Midwest, has years of experience flying hot air balloons as a serious hobby. He had named his balloon the" J.Renee" after his bride of one year and would try to win a $1 million prize offered by Anheuser-Busch, the makers of Budweiser, to be given to the first balloonist(s) to accomplish this feat before the turn of the century. Half of the prize money is paid to the balloon crew and half to a charity of their choice in their name. It was a bitterly cold night, but the event had been well publicized and hundreds of people lined the hills overlooking the quarry waiting for the 7 PM takeoff. Well, 7 PM came and went and no balloon. By 7:15, the crowd began to thin out because many were not properly dressed for the cold and were freezing. Marie, who had climbed the hill for a better view, came back to the car with her teeth chattering. I was sitting, comfortably, in the running car with the heater on and a blanket over my lap. The car phone rang at 7:30. It was our son, at home watching TV, who told us the liftoff had been delayed for a bit, but would definitely take place in the next hour. We passed the word among the remaining spectators and settled down to wait. In a few minutes people came streaming in and when the balloon floated eerily up into the night sky at 8:37, hundreds of horns were honking and the crowd was cheering. It rose quickly and in less than 30 seconds was beyond the range of the searchlights with only a strobe light on the bottom of the gondola, marking its progress. We made our way to a nearby Golden Arches where we celebrated the event with a milk shake, hamburger and fries. We talked about his adventure. A balloon is at the mercy of the winds aloft. It has no means of propulsion and no steering wheel. It can be navigated only by varying its altitude until a wind blowing in the desired direction is found. Firing the burners or dumping ballast to stay at a given altitude, climb or descend is an art. Winds are capricious and one must stay on course to maintain the heading. What an adventure! What if anything goes wrong? The newspaper had published a website address for the J.Renee balloon team. As soon as we were safely back home and I was settled in front of the computer, I opened the website and a new adventure for us began. Like most folks, Marie and I have seen hot air balloons flying around at times. A lawyer we know keeps a balloon at his farm North of town and we have seen it there on occasion as we drove by. That was about all we knew about them. The J.Renee website opened our eyes to a whole New World of ballooning. It told us that Uliassi's balloon used a combination of helium and hot air to provide lift. It was called a "Rozier" type balloon named after a Frenchman who invented and flew combination dual gas and hot air balloons, but was killed when his contraption exploded over the English Channel in a crossing attempt in 1758. He was using hydrogen as his lighter than air gas as did the ill fated airship Hindenberg many years later. Helium is not explosive but was not available in quantity until after WWII. Using the excellent Search utilities provided on the Internet, we soon discovered websites for five other balloons readying for an attempt at the prize. Each added to our knowledge base about ballooning. There are dangers from high altitude thunder storms, typhoons, and hurricanes which the balloonists must avoid. We soon learned that only the "jet stream," high altitude winds used to aid over-the-ocean airplane flights, provide a predictable high speed means of propulsion for balloons to circumnavigate the globe. Modern meteorology has discovered that these 100+ mph winds provide a fairly dependable path from West to East only from mid-November of any given year until Mid-February of the year following. These paths are steady then but usually break up into smaller, broken streams after that. What the effect of El Nino will be is unknown. This season (1997/8) is now over. Three American balloons have tried it and all were unsuccessful due to equipment failure. Kevin Uliassi's solo flight in the J.Renee lasted just 3 hours and 15 minutes when his balloon fabric ripped, allowing helium to escape. He was able to land safely in Indiana. He will try again next season. An e-mail of best wishes was unanswered. The flight of the Solo Spirit, manned by Chicago commodities trader Steve Fossett, ended in Southern Russia, 6+ days and over 7,300 miles from his liftoff in St. Louis. His cabin heater failed and he was low on fuel & oxygen. Hallucinating and half frozen, he decided to quit while he was still able to land the balloon. He has stated that he doubts he will try again without a pressurized capsule. E-mail wishes of good luck sent after the liftoff were not answered. Sponsored by Hilton Hotels, Barron Hilton, and Pepsi Cola, the fabric of the Global Hilton balloon envelope ruptured shortly after liftoff from Albuquerque. It had climbed to about 31,000 feet. The balloonists elected to parachute to safety and rode the balloon down to 11,200 feet before jumping out. Pilot Dick Rutan landed in some cactus plants and sustained only bruises in addition to numerous cactus quills. Surface winds caught the descending parachute of pilot Dave Melton and swept him into a fence cattle guard where he broke his hip and arm. The now unmanned balloon landed and burned near Gainesville, Texas, hours later, after hitting some power lines. They have not announced any future plans as yet and have not acknowledged e-mail messages sent. An international team in the Breitling Orbiter 3 lifted off from Switzerland, somehow lost a third of their fuel in the first 24 hours of the flight and were denied permission to overfly China until their only chance of rising to catch the favorable jet stream had vanished. They landed near Sitkwin, Burma. In spite of their problems they traveled 5,258 miles and had broken Dick Rutan's and copilot Jeana Yeager's official world record set in 1986 in the Voyager airplane for the longest duration of nonstop non-refueled flight by being aloft for 9 days, 17 hours and 55 minutes. Early in their voyage the Breitling crew discovered an air leak in the bottom hatch of their pressurized capsule. A voyage around the world was not possible unless this was fixed. Their English flight engineer, Andy Elson, whose hobby is mountain climbing, climbed out of the top hatch of the capsule 4,000 feet above the Adriatic Sea, and, using his mountaineering skills, swung under the gondola where, hanging upside down, he repaired the leak. French pilot Bertrand Piccard and Belgian navigator Wim Verstraeten assisted from inside the capsule. They have not stated whether or not they will try again and, if so, when. The reports from their website are apparently written by someone to whom English is a second language and frequently require interpretation and forbearance on the part of the reader. They briefly and pleasantly answered e-mail messages of encouragement. At Alice Springs, Australia, an American team from Albuquerque, Bob Martin, and John Wallington lacked sufficient funding for an attempt this season in their huge balloon, the Dymocks Flyer. Its design is identical to the remotely controlled, unmanned balloons NASA has used for meteorological observations for many years. Such balloons have successfully traveled non-stop around the world from this location several times. They will fly at a much greater altitude (24 miles) than the others utilizing a stratospheric jet stream which is said to be extremely reliable. Their capsule resembles a space ship. It is anticipated their funding will be in place for an attempt for the prize during the 1998/9 season. Bob Martin is a pleasant and reliable e-mail correspondent. The English team in Marrakech, Morocco waited in vain for a favorable weather window after replacing their envelope which a freak gust of wind tore loose from the gondola & blew away into the desert during an earlier launch attempt this year. The Virgin Global Challenger with pilots Richard Branson, Per Lindstrand and Rory McCarthy will try during the 1998/9 season this fall or winter. Their website became our favorite because they not only reported their own activities, but accurately and timely detailed the adventures of the other balloonists. I sent them an e-mail note telling them our circumstances and how much we appreciated their efforts. A friendly, prompt reply initiated a season long correspondence for which we have been grateful. Following the balloonist's efforts on the Internet is an exciting armchair adventure which we will continue this Fall and Winter of 1998/1999. If you are computer & modem equipped you can join in the fun. The websites are all listed at the end of the last Chapter published here. |