Gordon Bennett

Balloonists in the the Gordon Bennett cup, the world's oldest, simplest and slowest air race, launched from near Bristol, late on Saturday night. Started in 1906, the rules are simple: take off from a fixed point and fly as far as you can on one fill of hydrogen - the winner being the balloon that travels the furthest.

This year, the winners, a Swiss team - SWI2 - made up of Kurt Frieden and Pascal Witpraechtiger, landed near Constanta, Romania, having travelled 1,513 miles (2,435km). However, a balloon piloted by Americans Richard Abruzzo and Carol Rymer Davis, went missing in thunderstorms over the Adriatic. The search continues.
Twenty teams, from 11 countries, competed this year, the first time that the Coupe Aeronautique Gordon Bennett has taken off from the UK. Where they eventually landed can be seen here. Described by the organisers as "the oldest and most prestigious aeronautical race in the world", it has always generated interesting news stories, such as the following report from the Observer, October 18 1908.
As to who was the original Gordon Bennett, see here and here.

Arctic crossing by balloon

The recent news that Jean-Louis Etienne has made the first Arctic crossing by balloon, provides an excuse to mention Salomon August Andree's ill-fated 1897 attempt. The New Yorker has a big feature about how the Swedish explorer and two companions set out on the first flight to the North Pole, from Spitsbergen in the well-equipped balloon Ornen. They were never heard of again although their remains were discovered in 1930, along with Andree's diary. This revealed that the balloon had been forced down 500 miles from the North Pole.

Previous posting here, but for fascinating insight into the expedition, I'd recommend the Andree chapter in Geoff Powter's We Cannot Fail. Picture below from the Guardian, November 25 1930.

Hot air balloon

Explorer David Hempleman-Adams has broken two more world records after spending 14 hours in a laundry basket-sized capsule attached to a hot air balloon, it was reported, last Sunday. The 52-year old British adventurer flew more than 200 miles from Butler, Missouri, to Cherokee, Oklahoma, smashing the record for the AA-01 class balloon, which had stood for more than 26 years, and also breaking the record for the bigger AA-02 class of balloon. According to some reports the tiny seating capsule was in fact a £78 Ikea laundry basket.

In an earlier adventure, Hempleman-Adams attempted to fly over the north pole in a secondhand basket previously used to take tourists over Bristol. This expedition was in part modelled on that of Swedish explorer and balloonist, Salomon August Andree, who, in July 1897, attempted to drift, along with two companions and 35 carrier pigeons over the north pole to America. The expedition ended in disaster and it wasn't until 30 years later that their remains were discovered, a story included in the Polar chapter of Those Who Dared.