Word: kepner
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Last January three Soviet balloonists were killed when their gondola broke loose from the bag and plunged to earth. Last July the $1,000,000 stratoflight of Kepner and Stevens in the Explorer, biggest bag in history, came to grief when the balloon ripped at 60,000 ft. The balloonists had to take to their parachutes and most of their scientific instruments were smashed to smithereens...
...surrounding cliffs, 35,000 spectators had watched all night while a ground crew of 120 U. S. cavalrymen, working under cinema floodlights, swung into place the airtight gondola with its ton of scientific apparatus and 4,200 Ib. of buckshot ballast. In climbed the crew: Major William E. Kepner (pilot & commander), onetime assistant navigator of the Los Angeles, winner of the 1928 Gordon Bennett international balloon race; Capt. Albert W. Stevens (scientific observer), famed aerial photographer; and Capt. Orvil A. Anderson, longtime lighter-than-airman...
...Explorer, resembling a gigantic exclamation point, took off at 5:45 a. m.. and behaved badly from the start. Sluggish, she took two hours to rise 16,000 ft., then dropped to 14,000 ft. and "stalled" for two hours. After developing what Major Kepner described as "a hell of a list," she began to rise rapidly and by mid-afternoon had reached 60,000 ft. There she balked...
...good reason, the bottom of the bag ripped open with "a noise like a deep grunt." Leaking hydrogen, the Explorer bounced up & down for a half hour before she began to fall at a good clip. To bail out was impossible. "If we get out up here," radioed Major Kepner, "we will blow up like paper bags...
Plunging down 500 ft. a minute, the balloon ripped itself to shreds. At 12,000 ft. Major Kepner decided to abandon ship. First to leave the gondola was Capt. Anderson, at 5,000 ft. Capt. Stevens went next. Major Kepner waited until he was within 500 ft. of the ground before jumping with his parachute. All three landed safely. The gondola crashed on a farm near Loomis...