Word: ballooned
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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With elephantine dignity, the helium-filled balloon finally landed in a wheatfield in the village of Miserey, 50 miles west of Paris. By then, hundreds of cars had roared onto the scene, and villagers were sprinting to welcome the trio of adventurers. As they arrived, the Americans popped the cork from a bottle of champagne and began toasting their feat and each other. Ben Abruzzo, 48, Max Anderson, 44, and Larry Newman, 31, all from Albuquerque, had just completed a historic first crossing of the Atlantic by balloon, making the 3,100-mile trip from Presque Isle, Me., to Miserey...
Some people in the excited crowd clawed away bits of the gondola and even ripped off pieces of the balloon with their teeth to carry home as souvenirs. The Americans happily squirted the crowd with champagne. Said Abruzzo later: "We were so delighted to be on the ground again that the crowd looked good...
...first attempt to cross the Atlantic by balloon was made in 1873 from New York City but soon came to grief and earth in the Catskills. In all, some 17 transatlantic tries had been made before last week's successful flight, and seven lives lost. Abruzzo and Anderson themselves tried it last September but had to come down off Iceland, defeated, like the others, by the distance and the weather...
Their craft was a thing of beauty-a 160,000-cu.-ft. balloon, 65 ft. in diameter and 97 ft. high. It had a 17-ft. by 6½-ft. by 6-ft. gondola that was built, with a realistic if not fatalistic approach, with a twin-hulled catamaran that would float if the need arose...
...Friday, Aug. 11, acting on the advice of meteorologists, the trio lifted off from Presque Isle-and nearly crashed. Hitting a pocket of warm, light air, the balloon dipped sharply down over a gravel pit before recovering. By Monday evening, with all going well, the balloonists were 600 miles northeast of St. John's, Newfoundland, flying at 15,000 ft. The temperature was down to zero in the gondola, but angora long Johns and a portable heater kept the men from suffering frostbite. Their menus, chosen by their wives, consisted of a breakfast of hot coffee or cocoa with...