All day long we are in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in light of these overwhelming possibilities it is with awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously – no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners – no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment.

C.S. Lewis

The prolific British adventurer David Hempleman-Adams added another daring world record to his long list of achievements yesterday by crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a tiny hot air balloon.

Hempleman-Adams, who has conquered both geographic and magnetic poles and climbed Everest, described the latest record as his toughest challenge yet.

Having set off from the Newfoundland coast in Canada on Monday, he spent the last four days enduring temperatures of minus 20C and little sleep in a small open wicker basket in which he could only sit down by sticking his legs out of a “cat-flap”.

Unable to steer his helium balloon, he was at the mercy of the winds, and without a burner he had to release helium to descend and drop sand bags to gain height.

He cruised between 12,000ft and 15,000ft, as above 16,000ft you need breathing apparatus, and he ate mostly pork scratch-ings and ginger biscuits.

No one had ever crossed the Atlantic in such a basic craft - his was less than a 20th of the size used by Sir Richard Branson to tra- verse the same ocean.

And yesterday, after an epic 2,100 miles, Hempleman-Adams, 50, flew over Brittany in northern France and into the record books, having flown the greatest distance for the size of balloon he was travelling in.

Hempleman-Adams, from Bath, wrote in his online internet diary, or blog, “The French countryside is gorgeous. Thank God I’m over land! We’ve done it! I’ve just passed the distance I needed to get the world record for the class of balloon I’m flying. I can’t believe it. We’ve done it. I’m so pleased, thank you everyone.”

He also described the dramatic last few hours: “I had already seen land [the northern coast of France] and then the next thing I knew I thought I was heading back to sea … I had a bit of a panic attack.

“It was the scariest part of the trip. In my fog of tiredness I got confused. But I didn’t sleep a wink all night so that probably explains it.”

During the flight he had written about the exhaustion he was suffering because of the lack of sleep.

“I dropped from 11,000ft to 9,000ft when I nodded off. At one point I saw lights coming out of the darkness towards me. I thought it was a plane with its landing lights on and I got hold of my strobe light to warn it away, but the lights were still there. Very bright. Then I realised it was a planet.” he wrote.

Last night he landed safely in a field on the outskirts of Nolay, a village 30 miles south of Dijon, in eastern France. He travelled 2,625 miles and been in the air for 89 hours and 27 minutes.

Hempleman-Adams, a businessman, already held 29 ballooning records before his latest attempt. In January he broke the 26-year- old world hot air balloon altitude record by ascending to 32,500ft over Alberta, Canada. And in 2003 he became the first person to cross the Atlantic solo in an open wicker basket.

He took up ballooning at the age of 46 because he felt too old to ski or climb. He has led 29 expeditions. In 1992 he led the first team to walk unsupported to the North Geomagnetic Pole. In April 1998 he reached the North Geographic Pole and in so doing completed the “Adventurers’ Grand Slam”, meaning he had climbed the highest mountain on each continent and reached the North and South Geographic and Magnetic Poles.

Copyright 2007 Independent Newspapers UK Limited. All rights owned or operated by The Independent.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

20071015 - initial sketch

Some online references:

http://www.acastronovo.com/LiftThumbs.html
http://www.clusterballoon.org/
http://www.clusterballoon.org/learning/learning.htm
http://www.clusterballoon.org/intro/intro.html
http://www.eballoon.org/pictures/misc.html

Originally found here. This is an interesting application of an idea I spoke of recently.