Missing Gordon Bennett race balloonists' remains found
It is such a shame that the race ended this way. It was utterly gripping and I wished I had taken a few days off to really enjoy it. Definitely better than F1.
My thoughts are with Arbruzzo and Rymer-Davies and their families and friends.
My thoughts are with Arbruzzo and Rymer-Davies and their families and friends.
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The Swiss team made a brave early move by climbing high to get a faster wind immediately after launch (it costs loads of ballast to go high early; which reduces your potential duration) which seems to have paid off; they crossed across italy before nightfall and are over Bosnia now.
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This is indeed turning out into one of the most dramatic accidents of this year in private aviation.
I've always preferred wings to any other form of aviation but there is a beauty and grace to ballooning, quite apart from it being the first method of human flight.
To add to all this, how well they were doing in the race as well as the fact nothing so far has been found.... truly sad.
I also hope their flight path data are published (I understand the organization have them?), together with the known weather so all can possibly learn, CB's are not to be messed with!
I've always preferred wings to any other form of aviation but there is a beauty and grace to ballooning, quite apart from it being the first method of human flight.
To add to all this, how well they were doing in the race as well as the fact nothing so far has been found.... truly sad.
I also hope their flight path data are published (I understand the organization have them?), together with the known weather so all can possibly learn, CB's are not to be messed with!
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A sad but inevitable end.
"The remains of two American balloonists who went missing in September have been found in the Adriatic Sea, Italian coastguards have said."
Full story:
BBC News - Missing Gordon Bennett race balloonists' remains found
"The remains of two American balloonists who went missing in September have been found in the Adriatic Sea, Italian coastguards have said."
Full story:
BBC News - Missing Gordon Bennett race balloonists' remains found
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Missing Gordon Bennett race balloonists' remains found
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Hydrogen-fuelled balloon??
I would have thought, that travelling long distance in the atmosphere, in a hydrogen-fuelled balloon, would have been essentially a death wish. The fact that the last tracked movement reported, was vertically towards the Earth at 50 mph... and that no emergency beacon was set off... only points to catastrophic failure, and the rendering incapable of the baskets occupants. All these factors point to one almighty hydrogen explosion... 
