Hot Air Balloon | Historic Flights

Crossing The Big Pond

For Hot Air Balloonists the greatest challenge for a long time was crossing the Atlantic Ocean in 1978 3 intrepid people piloted a Hot Air Balloon called Double Eagle II the pilots were Ben Abruzzo, Maxxie Anderson and Larry Newman. These managed to do what was considered the impossible and for a few of them this was not the first attempt at trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The Flight Flew from Presque Isle Maine on the 11th August 1978 the flight lasted for 137 Hours and set a new world record in terms of distance.

First Hot Air Balloon Trip Round The World

 In 1999 2 Pilots became the first to fly a Hot air Balloon around the world they were Swiss Betrand Picard and British Brian Jones they teamed up and smashed the record for distance. They took off on Monday March 1st from Chateau d'Oex in the Swiss Alps. The Flight lasted over 19 days and 21 hours they successfully landed in North Africa. This was a non stop, non refeulled flight of over 42,000 KM.

First Solo Flight AroundThe Globe

Hot Air Balloon Pilot Steve Fossett became the first man to fly around the globe solo. Steve tried 6 times to achieve this. He landed on July 2nd 2002 and no one has ever achieved this since.