The Whole World To See

Three balloonists make history

The apparition that graced the skies over France last week looked rather like a giant exclamation point, which was entirely appropriate for the occasion. An enormous silvery balloon --eleven stories high--was sailing majestically through the air at 12 m.p.h., while in a red and yellow gondola below rode three bleary-eyed Americans, their excitement overcoming their exhaustion.

With elephantine dignity, the helium-filled balloon finally landed in a wheatfield in the village of Miserey, 50 miles west of Paris. By then, hundreds of cars had roared onto the scene, and villagers were sprinting to welcome the trio of adventurers. As they arrived, the Americans popped the cork from a bottle of champagne and began toasting their feat and each other. Ben Abruzzo, 48, Max Anderson, 44, and Larry Newman, 31, all from Albuquerque, had just completed a historic first crossing of the Atlantic by balloon, making the 3,100-mile trip from Presque Isle, Me., to Miserey in 5 days, 17hr. and 6 min.

The flight gave a lift to American spirits, providing an occasion for some pardonable national pride. The Albuquerque three had openly modeled their adventure after the famous airplane flight of Charles Lindbergh. Their craft was named the Double Eagle II, in honor of the Lone Eagle himself. They had wanted to land at Le Bourget, where Lucky Lindy had touched down on May 21, 1927. Though they fell 60 miles short of Le Bourget, they got a welcome reminiscent of the madness that greeted Lindbergh.

Some people in the excited crowd clawed away bits of the gondola and even ripped off pieces of the balloon with their teeth to carry home as souvenirs. The Americans happily squirted the crowd with champagne. Said Abruzzo later: "We were so delighted to be on the ground again that the crowd looked good."

The first attempt to cross the Atlantic by balloon was made in 1873 from New York City but soon came to grief and earth in the Catskills. In all, some 17 transatlantic tries had been made before last week's successful flight, and seven lives lost. Abruzzo and Anderson themselves tried it last September but had to come down off Iceland, defeated, like the others, by the distance and the weather.

But Abruzzo and Anderson had the skill, experience and equipment to make the voyage. Good friends, they and Newman, a newcomer to ballooning, had spent thousands of hours developing their techniques in Albuquerque, which has become the center of ballooning in the U.S. in part because of its mild weather. All three are experienced aircraft pilots, and Newman, who has 6,000 hours flying time, is qualified to handle an airliner. Since ballooning on this scale is an expensive sport (they estimated the cost of their flight at $125,000), the fact that all are wealthy also helped. Newman is president of Electra Flyer Corp., one of America's largest hang-glider manufacturing companies. Abruzzo is a land developer who is also president of the Sandia Peak Ski Co. He and Anderson, the president of a uranium and copper mining company, have been ballooning together for years and have had their share of adventures--once clearing Pikes Peak by just 20 ft.

They also have the panache that has always been characteristic of those who trust their lives to the winds and their wits. While passing over a mountain in Maine last September, Abruzzo began yodeling through an old brass megaphone on the pleasant theory that he could tell from the echoes how close they were to danger.

Their craft was a thing of beauty--a 160,000-cu.-ft. balloon, 65 ft. in diameter and 97 ft. high. It had a 17-ft. by 6 1/2-ft. by 6-ft. gondola that was built, with a realistic if not fatalistic approach, with a twin-hulled catamaran that would float if the need arose.

At 8:43 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 11, acting on the advice of meteorologists, the trio lifted off from Presque Isle--and nearly crashed. Hitting a pocket of warm, light air, the balloon dipped sharply down over a gravel pit before recovering. By Monday evening, with all going well, the balloonists were 600 miles northeast of St. John's, Newfoundland, flying at 15,000 ft. The temperature was down to zero in the gondola, but angora long Johns and a portable heater kept the men from suffering frostbite. Their menus, chosen by their wives, consisted of a breakfast of hot coffee or cocoa with doughnuts and raisins; high-protein sardines and hot dogs later in the day; and plenty of vitamins.

On Tuesday afternoon, some 1,000 miles from Ireland, gales lifted the balloon to nearly 20,000 ft., and the men were forced to don oxygen masks. The next day heavy ice forming on the balloon pushed it down to 4,000 ft. before the afternoon sun melted the frosty coating and saved the expedition.

As the balloon neared the British Isles, the winds died, and fearing the balloon might drop into the sea, American rescue planes were sent up. But a breeze freshened, and the crew caught a dizzying glimpse of Ireland through the clouds as they crossed over the tiny port of Louisburgh in County Mayo. Once they had traversed Wales and crossed the English Channel to the French coast, the men on Double Eagle II found themselves the center of a flock of light airplanes and helicopters that whizzed by in salute and formed an honor guard to escort them the rest of the way. One plane carried the three balloonists' wives, who waved frantically and blew kisses to their husbands. By this time, the adventurers had tossed most of their ballast overboard, including the computers that had helped them navigate and much of the elaborate radio gear that they had used to keep in close touch with monitors back on land.

Rescued from the cheerfully destructive crowd at Miserey, the Americans were whisked to Paris, where they were lionized by French officials ("a new bridge between America and France") and invited to spend the night at the American ambassador's residence. Newman won the toss and got to sleep in the same bed that Lindbergh had used after his flight.

Why spend $125,000 to cover the same ground in six days that thousands of airline passengers travel every week in a few hours? At a press conference, Abruzzo talked in much the same terms that explorers have used for centuries: "Unless frontiers are challenged from time to time--whether they be flying a balloon, breaking an altitude record in a plane or writing a fine piece of literature --we don't move forward as a society." And Anderson described the lure of ballooning: "There are no books or music up there, but there is the whole world to see. It's completely silent, and you move with the clouds. When you come over land, you are standing on a balcony, and the world going by underneath you is such a magnificent sight that you have to force yourself to sleep when it is time to do so."

What next? Why, to build a new balloon and circumnavigate the world. By soaring higher and ghosting along on stronger winds, Abruzzo figures that the trio might be able to do Jules Verne one better--in fact 50 days better--going around the world in 30 days. That dream itself provides a marvelous end to a marvelous adventure.

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