Balloon Life,
July 2000
The GodfreyL. Cabot Awardisone of the mostpresti-gious of
American aviation awards, annually awarded bythe Aero Club
of New England to individuals or teams who have made unique,
significant, andunparalleled contributions tofoster, encourage,
and advance aviation and space flight. Previous recipientshave
included IgorSikorsky, General Curtis LeMay, Dr. Charles Stark
Draper,GeneralJamesDoolittle,theRutan/YeagerVoyager
team, jet engine inventors SirFrank Whittle and Hans Ohain, and
Colonel Joe W. Kittinger, Jr. In 1999, Ed Yost received the award
in recognition of his invention of themodern hot air balloon. This
yeartheawardwentto
th eBreitlin gOrbiter3
team in recognition of an
acco mplishmentwhich
wascertain ly“unique,
significant,andunparal-
leled.”
BrianJones,oneof
the twoBreitlingOrbiter
3 pilots, was atthe Hyatt
Harborside Hotel in Bos-
tononJune2,2000to
receive the award. Susan
SparksandI hadthe op-
portunitytospendtime
withBrianandhiswife
Joanna prior to the event.
American balloonists will
be pleased to know that a
“realballoonist” accom-
plishedtheunparalleled
feat. We were also pleased
tofindthatlikemany“realballoonists,”BrianandJoanna
preferredtosit (ina ubiquitous Starbucks) andtalkaboutbal-
loonsrather than insiston a frantic tourist lookat Boston in the
short time we had available.
Back home in southwestern England, Brian and Joanna have
twoCameronhotairballoons,aViva77anda90.Heisa
“TrainingOfficer,”orChiefInstructorPilotwhodoescheck
ridesincludingcheckingoutotherinstructors.IntheU.S.he
would probably be called a Designated Examiner. Joanna is also
a hot air balloon pilot, but with far fewer hours than Brian. They
generally can’t fly togetherbecause she is usually his chase crew.
Likemostballoonists,hehashadtocontendwithlandowner
problemscausedbyafew“cowboyballoonists”whohave
irritatedlocalfarmers.Somefarmers,facingdifficult finances
andknowingthatbigrideballoonsaremoneymakers,charge
$100 to get the balloonout of their fields. Jones said there have
beendiscussionsabout chargingona per personinthebasket
basis, whichwould benefit sport balloonists.
Jonesandthe BreitlingOrbiter3teamwere appropriately
honoredbythe presence of a large contingentof New England
balloonists in addition to thecouple hundred more typical ACONE
aviationenthusiasts.Thepresenceofacoupleoflegendary
ballooningoctogenarianswasparticularlywelcome.EdYost
returned to Boston for the second year in a row, this time to honor
other balloonists whohadwonthe CabotAward.Andcoming
from Switzerland was Regula Hug. Regula had bought a couple
of gas balloonsfrom Ed,
sotheywere old friends.
Nowo nd erReg u la
neededtohave boughta
couple of Yost Skypower
balloons:shehasmore
than54 0gasball oon
flights to her credit! Also
inattendancewereRick
JonesfromtheBalloon
Federationo fAmerica
an daco upl eofNew
England’sownballoon-
inglegends, Dr. Clayton
Th o masan dKat hy
Wadsworth.
BrianJonesis ater-
rificspeaker,and his slide
and video presentation of
theflighttoldacompel-
lingtaleofanticipation,
hard work, fatigue, a dan-
gerous brushwith death, and finally triumph. Prior to beginning
his tale, Brian Jones paid tribute to Admiral Don Engen, another
Cabot Award winner who he hadmet prior to Engen’s untimely
deathin a sailplane accidentin California.
Joneshadalsobeena C-130loadmasterandahelicopter
winchman in the Royal Air Force prior to 1977. Having been an
NCO probably made him well-qualified to be second pilot in the
round-the-worldflightarena, wheretherewere certainlymore
thanenoughlarge egos. After all,anNCO knowsthatofficers
willusuallytaketheirshareofanygloryfirst,andacceptit
withoutcomplaint.
“I wasn’tevensupposedtobe flyingonthisthing,” Jones
related. “I was Project Manager, in charge of engineering and the
groundteam.Prior tothelaunch,myjobhadbeentogetthe
capsule built in six months in Bristol, England.” Jones had made
significant contributions to the prior Breitling missions. He had
Brian Jones accepts for the Breitling Orbiter 3 team.
Balloon Life,July2000
been responsible for putting together the capsule, including the
burner system. This gave him a familiarity with the system that
wouldallowhim toclimb on topof the capsule and make repairs
to the burner system in flight. Piccard had left these details to
Jonesand others onthe team whilehe worked on flightplanning,
thus making Jones the logical choice to be the second pilot.
Jones said that when he knew it was possible he would be
going, his first thoughtwas of his wife, who had been part of the
Operations Center team for the Breitling Orbiter 2 flight which
ended up in Myanmar (Burma). “Do I ask her or do I tell her? I
woke her up when I got back to the hotel and we talked.”After
some discussion, she made a joke, asking him “How do you get
back if the world really is flat?”
Conditions werefarfromperfect for the March 1,1999
takeoff, with winds of 12 knots gusting down the usually calm
Swissvalley. A hot air balloon that was supposed to take off and
fly ahead of the Breitling balloon to check for inversions and
other unusual atmospheric conditions deflated when its pilot
decided it was too dangerous to fly! But Jones was on top of the
capsule cuttingawaytapesholding thebig balloonto the ground,
and the big Roziere was soon on its way. The balloon rose very
fast,causingconcernabout thepossibility oftheballoon’s
helium cell burstingas the Uliassiand Rutan balloonshad done
earlier.
The balloon’s capsule was about the size of a small camper
van. The pilot’s positionhad an instrument panel with sophisti-
cated navigational instruments, but Jones said whether because
of tradition or habit they still carried a paper map of the world
where they marked their progress. Communications were carried
out bylaptopcomputerthrough asatellite communications
system to the Control Center in Geneva. The balloon had no
autopilot, so“life was busy.” Despite thesmall sizeofthe
capsule, in 20 days never a single cross word passed between
Jones and Piccard. “It helped that he was a psychiatrist,” Jones
said. Perhaps themostwonderfulsummationof theirrelationship
was Piccard’s comment that “We took off as pilots, we flew as
friends, and we landed as brothers.”
Ice, both interior and exterior, was a near constant problem.
Huge icicles formed on the outside of the balloon. Three times
Jones had to get out on top of the capsule and chip ice and make
adjustmentsto the burners and other equipment. At times it also
covered theentireceilingofthe capsulerequiringthem to chipoff
the ice to get at the ceiling-mounted fuel control unit. A hole in
the capsule insulation also wet the bedding onthe bed they
alternately shared for sleeping. Jones joked that they gave each
other “very stern looks” when they found the bed wet.
Theyused athree-shiftpatternmost days oftheflight.
During two eight hour periods, one pilot would sleep while the
othermonitored theflight. During the remaining eight hour
period, primarily afternoons, both would be up. Meals usually
were dehydrated meals from Nestle. The boilingwater needed to
make themealsedible took28minutes toboilatthe altitudesthey
were flying at. The “loo”was a sophisticated system similar to
that on airliners, usingcapsule pressurization to eject the waste.
The flight path took them southwest over Spain and Mo-
rocco, over prior takeoff sites for the Cable & Wireless and ICO
Globalballoons.They couldoverflyChinaonly if theyremained
south ofthe 26th parallel, requiring that jetstreamwinds be
entered over NorthAfrica. Asthey overflew SpainandMorocco,
they admitted to second thoughts about their more northerly
takeoff location. In whatJonesdescribed itasthe first “miracle”
of the flight, the balloon flew in a straightline for 1,500 miles at
25 degrees 30 minutes north. The second “miracle” tookfaith in
their meteorologist. Therewere two possible tracks over the
Pacific, one in a northern jetstream and one farther to the south.
No other balloon had ever tried to use the southern jetstream,
which was recommended by their meteorologist. Even more
incredibly, the recommendation was completely an educated
guess and “gut feel”by the meteorologist, as the southern route
did not even appear on the computer models!
For almost half of the way across the Pacific, the flightwas
slow, casting doubt on the decision to take the southern route.
Finally, south of Hawaii, the balloon picked up the predicted
southern jet stream and the balloonaccelerated from 35 knots to
over 75 knots.
NearingMexico theheater failed inthe balloon. Piccardand
Jones put on warm clothes, but the constant cold was still very
fatiguing. Incredibly tired and very confused, near V enezuela
they may have made a mistake that came all too close to killing
them. Waking up from one of his turns to sleep, Jones found
Piccard slumped over the desk by the instrument panel. The two
went on oxygen, which cleared their thinking. Jones believes
theymaynot have changed a carbon dioxidefilter when itshould
have been changed. There was no log entry when there should
have been one. It is also possible that the filter was changed and
the new one was defective. But they came very close to losing
consciousness, whichcould have beenfatalinthe closedcapsule.
(Jones said that based on this experiencewith theeffects of
fatigue that he doesn’tbelieve a solo flightaround the worldwill
be possible.)
It was time to make the decisionwhether to land near Puerto
Ricoortocrossthe Atlantic. Theyhadused three-quartersoftheir
fuel andhad gone only two-thirds of the necessary distance. The
ControlCenter in Geneva was tending toward the safest course,
a landing. But Jones and Piccard remembered what Dick Rutan
had told them: “The only way to fail is to quit.” They told the
ControlCenter they were going to go on. They felt that at worst
they might have to ditch near American forces in the Azores.
Shortly after the decision to continue across the Atlantic, the
balloon’s speed went from 45 knots, then to 60, then 80, and
finally to over 120 knots. For the first time they felt they really
might make it.
Jones said that when they had actually crossed the point on
earth which meant they had made it around the world, he and
Piccardhuggedinjoyandrelief.Jonesrelated“Thenmy
Britishness got to me, and I realized I was looking into another
man’seyesandholdinghim, and my armsdropped tomy sideand
Igot back towork.”Italsooccurred tothem thatthey had tomake
a successful landing. One of the rules was that the pilots had to
live for at least 12 hours after completion of the flight!
The landing inEgyptwas challenging. Jones was doing the
flying. They missed the river valley they had been aiming for
when icemelting off the balloon and capsule dropped away
causingthe balloon to ascend.Increasing thedifficulty, the
portholes Jones could see out of were facing to the rear. On the
second attempt, they hit the ground hard just below the top of a
plateau, bounced 300 feet back into the air, and finally landed.
Once outof the capsule, they took photographs and washed
Balloon Life,July2000
their hair for the first time in three weeks with water from ice
meltingoff the remainingpropane tanks. While they were outof
thecapsule, the winds picked up and theballoonbegandragging,
causingconcern thattheballoonmightgetawayfrom them. They
tried tocut holesin the balloon. Jonesgot outa signal flare rocket
and fired it into the balloon envelope. Instead of blasting up
throughthe layersof fabric, ithitthe helium cellandbouncedoff.
It exploded and setfire to the lower envelope, causinga fire they
had toputout. Finally, thewindtwistedthe balloon envelope and
deflated it. It would be seven hours after the landing before the
first Egyptians arrived.
Why did they succeed when 21 other attemptsfailed? Jones
said “We were professional. We had teamwork. They was no
willingnesstocompromiseon important items.”And Jones gave
credittotheir BelgianandSwissmeteorologistsand theexcellent
communications team.
