Up, up and down again: my attempt to balloon the Atlantic

00:00 06:08

David Hempleman-Adams has narrated this article for you to listen to.

I was hoping to fly the first hydrogen balloon across the Atlantic and had been waiting for a year to get the right call from our weather men. I had postponed the trip last year, when there was not a single track that would get us from the USA to Europe. Was it climate change? I had flown solo across the Atlantic in a balloon twice before, although when we say solo, the reality is a huge team of backstage staff to get you into the air safely and support the flight and the landing. This would be no different, except I would be accompanied by two fellow balloon pilots, Bert Padelt and Frederik Paulsen. In the past, weather patterns were stable for days. They now change much more quickly, as anyone trying to barbecue this summer will know.

Most people’s understanding of ballooning mostly comes from the beautiful, peaceful balloons seen floating across the English landscape. These balloons use hot air, heated by propane burners, and so, because of the weight of the propane tanks, have a limited maximum duration of a couple of hours. We needed a few days for our trip, so a gas balloon would be better. It is a very simple concept, a gas cell filled with either helium or hydrogen. Helium has become incredibly expensive. This is partly due to its use in MRI scanners, and the Chinese discovering party balloons. Hydrogen is cheap by comparison, a by-product of several industrial processes, but it is most commonly associated with the Hindenburg disaster. Insurance companies have a list of caveats as long as an NHS waiting list.