First crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a balloon accomplished in 1978

August 17, 1978: Double Eagle II sets down in a barley field. The feat was the first successful crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in a balloon. Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman left Presque Isle, Maine and 137 hours and 6 minutes later they landed in Miserey, France. This was the fourteenth attempt to cross the Atlantic using a balloon. The first try came in 1873 with the trip ending after 45 miles. By try #13, the two pilots were only 110 miles short of their goal when the gas bag ripped. Two flights vanished over the ocean (#4 in 1970 and #6 in 1974) killing the four balloonists. In 1974 with attempt #7, the balloon burst, killing the lone occupant.

Double Eagle II was built and designed by Ed Yost. The balloon held 160,000 cubic feet of helium. The attached gondola was named "The Spirit of Albuquerque" and measured 15 x 7 x 4.5 feet. The three men flew 3,107.6 miles in 5 days, 17 hours, and 6 minutes. The gondola was equipped with a twin hulled catamaran and would float should they need to make an emergency water landing. Newman also brought a hang glider intending to glide to a landing. However, it was jettisoned as ballast the day before.

Anderson and Abruzzo, both businessmen in Albuquerque, New Mexico, had tried to cross the ocean in Double Eagle I in 1977 – try #11 – but they were forced to ditch west of Iceland after looping east of Greenland. The smaller balloon was battered by storms after a delayed lift off and the ride ended after 65.5 hours. By 1978, the businessmen were both in their early forties while Newman, a hang glider manufacturer, was in his twenties. All three were experienced aviators in hot air balloons, hang gliders, and airplanes.

They had learned form earlier mistakes and managed to sail in over France. They looked for a promising spot to land. They were told the Le Bourget Airport had been closed for them. It was the airport used by Charles Lindbergh after his successful transatlantic flight. The crew was afraid of harming the people who had gathered to watch the landing of the Double Eagle II. They sailed on to safely land in the barley field, the first transcontinental balloon to alight on dry land.

"Another term for balloon is bad breath holder." - Demetri Martin

"My dream date is a tall, dark, handsome, blue eyed man with a bubble butt who will whisk me away to Paris in a hot air balloon to wine me, dine me ..." - Karen McDougal

"The jet stream is a very strong force and pushing a balloon into it is like pushing up against a brick wall, but once we got into it, we found that, remarkably, the balloon went whatever speed the wind went." - Richard Branson

"Well, the odds must be against anybody being able to fly around the world in a balloon on the first attempt. All of us who are attempting to go around the world in balloons are effectively flying in experimental craft because these craft cannot be tested." - Richard Branson

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Halgrimson: Many local ties to cross-Atlantic balloon ventures

On July 26, 1958, U.S. Navy scientists Capt. Malcolm O. Ross and M. Lee Lewis ascended from Crosby, Minn., for a third Strato-Lab research flight. They stayed at an altitude of 82,000 feet for more than 34 hours.

During the flight they gathered scientific and medical data for future manned space flights. They landed on a farm west of Woodworth, N.D., 40 miles northwest of Jamestown.

U.S. stratosphere balloon flights – some manned and others unmanned – in the 1950s and 1960s were the forerunners to manned space flight and the beginning of the exploration of space.

During the 1970s, a number of attempts to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a balloon were made; including one very notable trip by Maxie Anderson, a graduate of the University of North Dakota:

• Free Life – On Sept. 20, 1970, an English balloon pioneer and an American couple attempted a west-to-east crossing and ditched 30 hours later just off Newfoundland. The three crew members died, and no wreckage was found.

• Yankee Zephyr – On Aug. 7, 1973, a single pilot left Bar Harbour, Maine, and the flight was ended by a storm and the pilot rescued.

• Light Heart – On Feb. 18, 1974, an attempt to use the “jet stream” to cross the Atlantic resulted in the pilot’s death when he crashed in the ocean. No wreckage was found.

• Windborne – On Jan. 6, 1975, another attempt was made, but the weather did not cooperate. The pilots’ lives were saved.

• Odyssey – On Aug. 21, 1975, the same man who piloted the Yankee Zephyr tried again but ended up in the ocean two hours later.

• Spirit of ’76 – On June 25, 1976, the Odyssey’s refitted gondola attached to an envelop built by Mark Semich of Semco Balloons, left from Lakehurst, N.J., and went down in a storm 550 miles later. The pilot was rescued by a Russian trawler.

• Silver Fox – On Oct. 5, 1976, an attempt made by Ed Yost broke all of the records set during the previous 18 years but went down in the middle of the ocean 700 miles from Europe when the wind direction changed. He had set a distance record of 2,474 miles. Yost is considered the father of modern hot-air ballooning. He died May 27, 2007, at the age of 87.

• Double Eagle – On Sept. 9, 1977, an attempt by Maxie Anderson and Ben Abruzzo plus two pilots from New Mexico crashed into the sea off Iceland. They had flown for 64 hours and 2,950 miles.

• Eagle – On Oct. 10, 1977, another attempt left from Bar Harbour and crashed 220 miles later in another storm.

• Double Eagle II – The Atlantic Ocean was conquered in 1978 when Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman, flew 3,120 miles in 137 hours in the Double Eagle II. The crew left from Presque Isle in Maine on Aug. 11 and landed at Evereux, France, about 60 miles northwest of Paris.

In October 1978, Maxie Anderson received the University of North Dakota Alumni Association’s highest award. Anderson was born in Sayre, Okla., and earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from UND in 1956.

After many ballooning adventures, some of which included his son Kris, Anderson died when he and Don Ida crashed in a Bavarian forest in West Germany on June 27, 1983, while participating in a balloon race. He was 49.

Other ballooning events tied to North Dakota include the April 27, 1981, event that ended when Ben Abruzzo and Japanese restaurateur Rocky Aoki landed their balloon on a Millarton, N.D., farm 13 miles southeast of Jamestown. The flight set a world long-distance record for their balloon of 1,348.1 miles. The flight began in Fountain Valley, Calif., and ended in a North Dakota field.

On Monday, Feb. 11, 1985, Abruzzo and his wife, Patricia, and four friends died in an airplane crash near Albuquerque, N.M. The were on their way to ski in Aspen, Colo.

Part three on local ballooning will appear in two weeks.

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