Chris's Ballooning Page

Puffin

I started hot-air ballooning at the age of 16 and soon afterwards joined a syndicate which owned an 84,000 cubic foot Cameron balloon called Puffin, registration G-BALD.

Puffin was an oldie: it had a velcro rip instead of a parachute and the fabric was getting porous. The bottom panels were burnt to a crisp and the basket had a hole in the floor! Worst of all we had no fan so we had to flap air into the envelope manually at the start of every inflation - more like aerobics than aerostatics.

Puffin came to a sticky end at the Suffolk Show when it broke loose from its tether and crashed through a home-made jam stall, also demolishing several tents, a kiddies' roundabout, an inflatable castle and a van. Fortunately the carnage came to an end just short of a line of vintage cars which must have been worth a fortune.

Puffin II

Puffin II, registration G-PUFF, was a Thunder balloon (the prototype of the Viva series) and at 77,000 cubic feet was more compact than Puffin but being made of new fabric it didn't leak and could lift just as much while being far more manoeuverable.

But that didn't stop us flying it into power cables!

In 1983 our syndicate went to France to celebrate the bicentenary of the Montgolfier Brothers' first venture into aerospace. We drank lots of red wine and made several ascents over the Jura Valley but not necessarily in that order.

Mercator

Mercator is a windows program which converts map co-ordinates between longitude & latitude and Ordnance Survey grid references. It is intended for surveyors, aeronauts and anyone who uses a global positioning system. You can download a copy of the shareware version from my Mercator page, which also includes a screenshot and instructions (hardly necessary) on using the software.

Round-the-World Attempts

At the end of 1987 there were six teams preparing to be the first to fly non-stop around the world in a balloon.
Check on their progress at these sites:

News at Launch.net
NOVA Online

And here are the homepages for the teams:
Virgin Challenger
Solo Spirit
Breitling-Orbiter 2

The story so far:

Richard Branson was left behind by his balloon which took off without him.

Solo Spirit has crossed the Atlantic and is currently cruising southeast over Eastern Europe, having reached the Czech Republic on Saturday afternoon and Hungary by that evening. On Sunday Steve Fossett had reached Turkey and reported that his cabin heater had broken down and that there were control problems with the burners. Progress slowed down owing to light winds and it was decided to abandon the attempt.

The rival J Renee balloon flight was aborted after the envelope ripped.

Another rival, Dick Rutan, launched from Albuquerque in his balloon Global Hilton but soon parachuted out with his co-pilot after discovering a leak in the helium cell.

In Switzerland, Bertrand Piccard suffered a setback when the capsule of his balloon Breitling Orbiter 2 was dropped while being unloaded from its trailer. The damage took several days to repair. He launched at the end of Jan 1998 but was becalmed and made very slow progress across Europe. As he approached the Far East it became doubtful that he would obtain permission to overfly China and it was decided instead to stay in the air long enough to break the airborne endurance record. The Chinese finally gave permission but too late to enable Piccard to make it round the world. The Orbiter landed in Burma on 6th Feb 1998. Breitling Watches are rumoured to be willing to sponsor a third attempt.

After waiting in vain for suitable weather Richard Branson has now abandoned his attempt until December 1998.

Hello, this seems to be a bit out of date - watch this space...

Round the World Attempts: Recent News Stories from CNN etc