Balloon Life,
April 2000
In1990DavidRappsuggestedtotheBalloonFederationof
America that a “long-jump” balloon competition be estab-lished
in the U.S. modeled after the British Balloon and Airship Club’s
program. The idea of this competition, to see who could fly a hot
air balloon the greatest distance, was to foster flight planning and
learning.
The winner of the first year’scompetition in 1991wasJon
Kolba, a firefighter living in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. “Its hard
for me to understandwhyanybody, whether it isballooning or
any other activity, doesn’t want to attempttobe, or do, the best
atwhateveritmightbe,”KolbatoldBalloon Life recently.
“Winning the original BFA long jump in 1991 gave me a taste for
these types of flights.”
RecentlyKolba started lookingthroughthebook of world
records for hot air ballooning. He came to the conclusion that the
duration record for AX-6 balloons, at 15hours 22minutes, was
the most attainable.
WhenhetookhisballooninforannualattheAerostar
factorylast autumn he thought we would get some background
informationfor a possible attempt the nextyear. “I talkedwith
MarkWest,justaskinghimquestionsabouta recordattempt.
Things a person might need to consider, some of the limitations
that might be pushedina worldrecordattempt.”
Turns out the Mark West had been wanting to test some low
fuelconsumption envelope ideas. West toldKolba it wouldbe
possible to have an envelope readytogo that winter season. Jon
wenthome andputpencilto papertoseeifhe couldmake the
financeswork.HegaveAerostarthegoaheadtobuiltan
experimental envelope.
“Uppertwo-thirds ofthe balloon was adouble wall construc-
tion that created an inner cavity of four to eight inches,” West told
Balloon Life. “We used1.3 ounce Aerolitematerial.The inner
layerfabricwasavacuumdepositedatomizedaluminum. The
aluminum was bonded to the yarns and then asilicone coating put
over it. Otherwise the aluminum would flake off. The material in
this case is similar to a space blanket. The idea of the double wall
wasto create a deadlayerof air for insulation. The lower one-
third of balloonwas single wallconstructionof silver fabric to
reflectheatback into the envelope.”
With the envelope under construction Kolba started calling
anybody and everybody that he could think of who had set world
records totry and learn as muchas he could. “Itwas wonderful
experiencebecausethesepeoplewerereallywillingtoshare
information with me.” said Kolba. “I had a lot of help from a lot
of different people.
“OnthisendIspentalotoftimeexperimentingwith
different things. Batteries, voltage, those kinds of things. I spend
hours in the local freezer. That is where I tested my cold weather
gear, to see if the down parka would hold up. I tested the batteries
in the freezer. I wanted to make sure that I could come up with the
BalloonLife,April2000
saw nothing to be gained by keeping him out. If he was going to
beat [the existingrecord]or me, he was going to do thatwhether
I held the sanctionor not. I was also confidentthatwe could beat
him, and beat him in the same year would really be exciting.”
Bussey launched his attempt,SkyQuest 7, on January 30 in
Okemah,Oklahoma.Helanded21hours13minuteslater,
shattering the old record.
With anumberofvolunteersonstandby Kolba finally
spotted a weather pattern he thought would be good. Expecting
the Arctichigh to take balloonin a southerlyflightpath the team
departed February 10 and drove to Jamestown, North Dakota,
arrivingaroundmidnight.They rose earlythe nextmorning,after
four hours of sleep, and set about the task of getting the balloon
ready.
“Allthe way through, prior tothe flightand even duringthe
flightwe kept contactwith the weather people. They kept saying
that we would head south and east early on during the day. They
anticipated that the highwouldcome rightover us. They thought
the wind would become lightand variable during the afternoon
hours, then outof the southeast in the evening which would take
us back up into North Dakota, which we had hoped to do.
“Rightfrom the morning of launch I got a littlebit of south
butmostlyeast. Itwasprettyslow during the day. As the evening
approachedI wentrightup tothe north and east. That iswhenthe
crew said I could head straight north on the surface. That’s what
I did. You didn’t want to be up in northern Minnesota. That is a
lot of nothing up there. The recovery would be difficult. Right
there in the Red River Valley if Icould have continued that
northerly track we would have been in pretty good shape.
“I flew for hours getting as close as I could to the ground.
Dodging trees and powerlines and the crew did an excellent job
intryingtofindthese obstacles atnight. They were leap frogging.
That by far was the most successful portion of the flightfor me.
After a while everything started taking the balloon to the north
and east, right up to where I didn’t want to be.
“At onepoint, whereI lost contact with the crew, they
wanted me down on the ground. That was a difficult choice for
me, not to listen to them. I knew that fuel wasn’t going to be a
problem. Aerostarwasdoingthe [fuel]calculationsbackinSioux
Falls.
“Imade a commitment to myself that I wasn’t going toland
until I had broken the record. Partly I kept thinking of Sammy
Sosawho broke the home run record and came insecond. I didn’t
want that to happen to me. I wasn’t going to land until I had
broken the record. If thatmeantputtingit down inthe trees inthe
middle of no-where I was prepared to do that. I had plenty of
warm clothing.”
Kolba had taken off with 186 gallons of fuel. Gross weight
atlaunchwas between 1600and 1700pounds.On takeoff
equilibrium envelope temperature was 270 degrees. By the end
ofthe flightitwas 105degrees.Helandedwithsixgallonsof fuel.
While that mightnot sound like much Mark Westestimated that
he had more than two hours of fuel left.
Kolba landed after 21 hours 57 minutes, just enough tomeet
the minimum required time over Bussey’s flight. Not that he
didn’t want to flylonger.With the Canadian borderwithin
spittingdistance he had to. The experimental aircraft would not
have been legal to fly in Canada.
Balloon Life asked Mark Westif there were anysurprises in
theperformance ofthe envelope. “Lookslikethe balloonachieved
17 percent better fuel consumption becauseof solar heating
during the day. However, at the end of the flight the envelope
weighed 40 pounds more than at the beginning of the flight. We
will need to take a closer look at the water buildup. You don’t
want to be packing away a wet envelope after every flight.”
Usuallydurationflightslike thistakeoffin thelateafternoon
and fly through the night first. Kolba elected for amorning
launch. “The original intentwasto launchbefore sundownso we
could land before dark the next day. The best weather window
with this system looked like a morning launch. Plus, we were
confidentof being able tofly24 hours sothatwe would actually
land in the daylight the next day. We had the fuel to do that, we
justdidn’t have the real estate. Itwasa weather consideration. In
hindsight,itworked out nice for droppingfueltanks. I didn’tjust
have the luxuryof justdroppingfueltanks. I loweredthem down.
Beingable todo those dropsin the daylight, rather than the dark,
was much easier.”
Unfortunately Kolba’s barograph, the official time piece,
stopped working late in the flight. Fortunately the GPS he had
onboard had a triptimer whichis activatedby motion. It recorded
a time of 21 hours, 57 minutes, 1 second. “We got verification
from the manufacturer. Hopefully itwillbe accepted by the FAI
as the source of flightinformation. As the time, speed, distance
is plotted on the map they all support one another.”
The certification of the time is now in the hands of the FAI.
He had hoped to make another attempt this past winter but the
necessary weathernevermaterialized. Will he try again next
year?
“Well, I have been talking about it. For me, it is going to
come down to a financial thing. I’m not sure that I can afford to
do another one of these flightson my own. I will see if I can find
sponsorshipmoney. Certainlydepends whetherthisrecordclaim
holdsupor not. If itdoesn’tI willbe more motivatedto gooutand
do it. If it does hold up I know that we are capable of doing a lot
more. The AX-7 record is just over 24 hours. We certainly have
the capability ofbeating that fairly easily just based on the
performance ofthisone flight. Itwouldbe funto gooutandbreak
a couple records.
“Forme, itwas a pretty conservative flight. We didn’t push
the limitson anything. I certainly hope to be able to do more in
thefuture. But, for a firsttime out,I thinkthat we didreallywell.”
Area ofdetail
B au d et t e ,
Minnesota
