Twenty-one gas balloon teams took part in the 61st Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett Race. They took off on 8th September 2017, between 17:30 and 18:33
Read More
French Pilots Win World’s Prestigious Gas-Balloon Race
Source: FAI — French balloon pilots Vincent Leys and Christophe Houver won the 61st Gordon Bennett Cup over the weekend of 8-10 September 2017.
Read More
21 Gas Balloon Teams Race Across European Skies
Yesterday, 21 gas balloon teams from 13 countries took off from Gruyères airfield, in Switzerland to compete in the 61st Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett
Read More
From Near Space, 100 Balloons with Cameras to Send Video of Eclipse
NASA, and its video platform Stream, will launch 100 balloons attached to cameras that will soar 100,000 feet above the Earth’s surface to provide
Read More
Rope-Walk at a Terrifying Height Between Balloons
This thrill seeker walks on a wobbly rope 2,165 feet above the ground, between two floating hot-air balloons. Stanislav Paniuta struggled at first to get a foothold on the rope as balloon pilots and others watch. Was the risk catastrophic?
Read More
Incredible Journey of a Japanese Balloon Bomb
On February 23, 1945, three preteen boys, Larry Bailey and brothers Ken and Bob Fein, were playing in North Dorr, Michigan, near the Fein’s house. All of a sudden, a mysterious object appeared floating overhead and descend at a 45° angle. The boys knew that it was about to land close by. “We were so excited, we got a family friend Joe Wolf to come with us in his pickup truck, and we tracked it,” said Bailey.
Read More
A Japanese War Weapon and Don Piccard’s Famous Flight
Seventy years ago, Donald Piccard, barely 21, modified the envelope of a Japanese balloon bomb for a balloon flight over Minneapolis and earned the nation’s first Free Balloon Pilot Certificate. The student pilot flew solo for two hours and 10 minutes in a paper and hydrogen balloon for the first time, creating history and reactivating the sport of ballooning in the United States. But the balloon that he flew also brought to light another interesting story–this one from its prior service as a Japanese balloon bomb!
Read More
Leak Causes Scientific Balloon and Space Observatory Payload to Sink in Pacific Ocean
A leak in a stadium-sized scientific balloon forced NASA flight controllers to bring it down in the South Pacific Ocean on May 6th. The super-pressure balloon (SPB) and its space observatory payload, worth several million dollars, have sunk to the bottom of the Pacific, about 321km south of Easter Island, with no chance of recovery.
Read More
World’s Largest Airship Achieves a Three-Hour Test Flight
The world’s largest aircraft returned to the skies since its last crash landing in August and flew for three hours today. The $33 million hybrid airship, which is part blimp, aircraft, and helicopter and is the length of a football field, took off over Bedfordshire, in England.
Read More
Fifty Years of Balloon-Borne Ozone Research
The balloon-borne ozonesonde helped NOAA develop knowledge and expertise to find out about the depletion of ozone. In May 1985, scientists with the British Antarctic Survey announced that they had discovered a huge hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. The largest ozone hole area recorded to date was on September 9, 2000, at 11.5 million square miles (29.9 million square kilometers). Scientists had launched the first ozonesonde in 1967 to learn about its distribution…
Read More