Word: piccards
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...intrepid Brit off in that aircraft. Trivia, you say? But there was nothing trivial about the real-life fulfillment of what seemed to be quixotic fantasy last week in Northern Africa. In a 180-ft.-high balloon, a silvery dare in the air, two adventurers--Swiss psychiatrist Bertrand Piccard, 41, and British balloon instructor Brian Jones, 51--completed their tour of the world in 20 days. The stakes were different (a purse of $1 million, courtesy of Anheuser-Busch, as opposed to 20,000[pounds] in Verne), but their intent was the same. They sought to prove a point...
...Breitling Orbiter 3 crossed the finish line (9.27[degrees] west longitude) over Mauritania last Saturday. Piccard was ecstatic: "I am with the angels and just completely happy," he said over satellite relay. Jones, for his part, said calmly, "I am going to have a cup of tea, like any good Englishman." They had sailed into history. And they decided to sail on a little more. "We do not land. We go to Egypt," Piccard radioed air-traffic control in Senegal. "We are a balloon flying around the world." "I will be tearing their eyes out when I see them," their...
...been crossed and recrossed, and the eagle has landed. So why not do it in a balloon? Well, what can you say about a pastime whose first passengers were, in an experiment by the French Montgolfier brothers in 1783, a duck, a rooster and a sheep? No wonder Piccard has a complex. "The way the public sees it is this," he explained before lift-off. "If we don't leave, we are idiots. If we do leave but don't succeed in our mission, we are incompetent. But if we do succeed, it's because it was easy and anyone...
...overseeing the construction of the gondola for Cameron Balloons when he was nominated to be a reserve pilot in the Breitling attempt. "Of course, reserves in any activity assume they will always remain reserves," he says. But he found himself, as he puts it, "in the hot seat" when Piccard had a falling out with his first co-pilot, Tony Brown. "He's not an adventurer," says Joanna Jones of her husband. "He's a professional pilot who approaches things in a judged manner." Jones quickly fell into a comfortable rhythm with his copilot. Brian "made...
...Santa Maria--and the Spirit of St. Louis, for that matter. It is a high-tech combination of hot air and gas, equipped not only with simple necessities like a bunk, toilet and desks but also with a fax machine and satellite telephones. The journey began on March 1, Piccard's birthday, in the snowcapped mountains of Chateau-d'Oex, Switzerland. Piccard and Jones cruised toward Italy at an altitude of 21,000 ft., crossed over the Mediterranean at night and enjoyed a meal of emu. On a satellite phone, Jones chatted with his wife, who spent most...