EDITOR

Global Plans
Three flight teams stand ready to embark on an odyssey to become the first to fly around the world by balloon. Steve Fossett in Solo Challenger, and Per Lindstrand, Richard Branson, and Rory McCarthy in Virgin Global Challenger are finalizing their plans. Henk Brink and Willem Hageman were waiting for favorable weather when the third member of their flight team left the project.

For the first time in four years Larry Newman is not among those ready to make a flight. After five aborted attempts Newman is currently rethinking his equipment needs and trying to raise new funding.

Whether anyone is able to complete “the last great challenge” will require the right weather. Until the necessary conditions are met it is a waiting game for the teams. The wait allows each team to hone their skills and equipment. Perhaps it is this long waiting period that lead to the following post on the Internet recently from the Solo Challenger team:

“The crew of the Solo Challenger balloon have issued a statement strongly protesting an earlier press release in which it was stated that Steve Fossett, the pilot of the Solo Challenger, would use a bucket to go to the bathroom in the spacious capsule which will be his home for nearly three weeks in the record- shattering flight around the world.

“The Research Department has worked long and hard on this always- perplexing problem and has developed a prototype Cryobaric Excrement Eliminator (patent pending) which is the present state of the art in this field. At the end of the flight, it is planned to have the freeze-dried excrement shaped in the form of the balloon, complete with grunt rings, and these will be sold along with first day issue of the tissue paper stamps commemorating the flight. These stamps will incorporate not only the picture of the balloon but the glue will be environmentally friendly having been formulated by the Research Department of recycled material from the flight.”

Being crammed into a small space for two to three weeks at high altitudes will also test the mettle of these intrepid aeronauts. Each of the present contenders has proven their mettle in previous long distance flights. But, two to three weeks is a long time in a very small space. It will test endurance unlike any other experience. Each team is certainly up to the task and their equipment built by the best in the business.

Once in the air the balloon team(s) will be the focus of world wide attention. We wish each team swift winds and a safe voyage. For more on global attempts see Preflight on page 8.

NPRM 95-11
Owing to the complexity of the Notice of Proposed Rule Making, the Federal Aviation Administration has extended the comment period for NPRM 95-11 (Certification of pilots and instructors) until February 12, 1996.

Maps
This month our Special Report examines maps. Landowner relations, scoring well in competition, flying legally, and just “flying” the balloon require good planning skills. The map is a valuable asset in making a flight plan and successfully executing it.

Selecting the right map and its use are detailed in Finding Your Way beginning on page 20. Plotting Your Course on page 22 reprises Pat Cannon’s article on how to translate pibal information into selecting a takeoff point. Sectional Chart and an accompanying quiz will refresh your memory on this valuable, and often little used by balloonists, map. For those looking for a better method to use their map in flight Balloon Life offers a “how to” for building your own map board beginning on page 12.

Lastly, read how balloons were used for map making at the turn of this century in Map Making From a Balloon on page 23.