Two pilots from the US and Russia have traveled farther and longer in a gas balloon than anyone in history, trying to eliminate any remaining debate over a century of records in long-distance ballooning.
The Two Eagles pilots surpassed the distance and duration records that have been held since the 1970s and 1980s and were aiming on Friday for a safe landing somewhere on a beach in Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.
Troy Bradley of Albuquerque and Leonid Tiukhtyaev of Russia lifted off from Japan on Sunday last week, and by Friday, they beat what is considered the “holy grail” of ballooning achievements, the 137-hour duration record set in 1978 by the Double Eagle crew of Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman in the first balloon flight across the Atlantic.
By Friday afternoon, the Two Eagles team had been in the air more than 143 hours and was smashing the distance record, having traveled more than 10,000km across the Pacific Ocean.
“The technology has improved so much in the last couple of years. I don’t think there’s going to be any question about the records,” Balloon Federation of America regional director Katie Griggs said.
People have been tracking their progress online and through social media Web sites. However, the official distance and time of the Two Eagles flight must be confirmed by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale, which requires staying aloft 1 percent longer and farther than the previous record.
The balloon is outfitted with an array of monitors and other instruments that are tracking its course and compiling the data, using technology that did not exist in decades past, leaving some claims unproven.
Their first target was the official distance record of 8,382km set by the Double Eagle V team during the first trans-Pacific flight in 1981. They surpassed that on Thursday.
Mission control director Steve Shope said their priority now is getting the balloon to a safe landing after bad weather along the US west coast forced them to make a sharp right turn toward Mexico.
“Maybe later when they get down on the ground I can look back and say this is a great accomplishment, but right now we have a big job ahead of us to get this balloon down,” Shope said.
On final approach to a beach in Baja California, the pilots plan a “splash and dash” for the cameras, skimming the surface of the ocean before rising to set down on some dunes. Once they reach the sand, they will have traveled more than 10,940km.
A chase crew of volunteers and members of the mission were en route Friday to record their arrival, help tether the craft and gather the balloon.
The journey has been tough on the pilots, who have been on oxygen for days; high altitude can take a physical toll. However, they have been managing to crack jokes when checking in with mission control and their families.
“The crew is in good spirits,” one of their air traffic coordinators Paul Jorgenson said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS