Foreword

by Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson

This is a book about challenge, technology and adventure — the mid-winter crossing of the world's largest ocean, by the two of us suspended in a tiny capsule below a balloon full of hot air. The book describes the development of the amazing balloon behind the scenes, and brings back the hair raising moments of the actual flight, and our rescue from the Arctic wastes.

All too often exciting and historical events like this disappear from memory simply because no one took the trouble to record the experiences and save them for posterity. There is a lack of ballooning books other than the coffee table variety, so it is particularly pleasing to read John's in-depth description of what happened under the surface. John has been the technical cornerstone in the setting of four world records, and hopes to be involved in more to come.

Record attempts in aviation are a man and machine endeavour, which require tremendous teamwork, spanning design, manufacture, testing and finally, flight monitoring. What brought both our Atlantic and Pacific flights eventual success was that we managed to assemble the best balloon team ever. The headlines usually highlight the pilots, but if ever teamwork played a vital role in a project, this was it.

John's book goes some way towards giving this teamwork its proper credit, but no book could be thick enough to describe all the hard work and sacrifices that went on unheralded behind the scenes. There are many reasons for pushing oneself through hardships and failures to achieve a goal: it is not just adventure, although that is the primary driving force, but also a desire to see technology work and, particularly in aviation record breaking, to spearhead and lead the way to future developments in everyday aircraft.

The technology and expertise we have developed and proven by flying a balloon further and faster than ever before, will find its way down to the average sport balloonist, in the form of improved fuel economy, equpiment life, performance and safety.

If you love adventure, balloons or aviation, read on ...

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