Word: piccards
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What has given an old technology a new boost is lightweight materials like foamed carbon fibers, similar to those used in the Brietling Orbiter 3, the balloon that Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones used in last year's record-setting flight around the world. Piccard is the grandson of Auguste Piccard, the famed physicist and part-time aviator who in 1932 became the first man to reach the stratosphere in a balloon. In 1988 an engineer named Klaus Hagenlocher began poring through the Zeppelin archives and persuaded the company's CEO, Friedrichshafen Mayor Bernd Wiedmann, to resurrect the airship...
...pilots will get within a meter of it." The Orbiter 3 crew hit its target on the fourth day of the journey and sped along in a jet stream at 60 m.p.h. They ventured outside the cabin once, when the balloon descended to 10,000 ft., so that Piccard could chip away at ice that had formed on the cables and the capsule. There were few surprises, and the only irritant was a mysterious buzzing in the cabin. On Day 5, Piccard located--and dispatched--its source: a stowaway mosquito...
...March 7 Piccard and Jones heard of a misfortune--and it was good news for their quest. On that day their competitors, the British team of Andy Elson and Colin Prescot, ditched over the Pacific Ocean. After setting an endurance record of 17 days, 18 hrs., 25 min. aloft, the duo, in the Cable & Wireless balloon, was knocked out by what amounted to a one-two punch. First, peeved that Branson's December flight had infringed upon its airspace, China denied entry to his countrymen, forcing them to follow a more convoluted route. And then, while traveling over Thailand, Elson...
...Piccard and Jones had better luck with China. On March 10 the Beijing government allowed the Swiss-licensed Breitling access to its skies, so long as the craft stayed south of the 26th parallel. Nevertheless, morale on the Orbiter 3 started to flag soon after, as Piccard and Jones flew over the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Progress toward Hawaii was slow, and they lost contact with mission control for four days. "I realized that the worst desert wasn't made of sand but of water," Piccard said when communications were re-established. Then the balloon popped...
...Verne's novel asks of Fogg: "What had he brought back from this long and weary journey? Nothing, say you?" The names Piccard and Jones may not strike the same chords as Columbus or Magellan or Lindbergh or Armstrong. Indeed, last weekend's achievement is literally lighter than air. But Piccard and Jones have won the last world-spanning contest of our era. And now they are history...