“ Inspioneer ”
Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones guided the balloon Breitling Orbiter 3 up and away from the Swiss Alpine village of Chateau d'Oex on March 1st, 1999. They landed in the Egyptian desert 19 days, 21 hours and 55 minutes later (21 March 1999), having travelled a distance of over 29,000 miles and completed the first non-stop flight around the world with a free balloon. The success of Breitling Orbiter 3 was based on the lessons learned during two previous attempts to fly around the globe in 1997 (Breitling Orbiter) and 1998 (Breitling Orbiter 2). That experience enabled the team to develop trustworthy technical systems and a basic strategy that called for Piccard and Jones to pilot their balloon to altitudes of over 30,000 feet, where jet stream winds would drive it across the Pacific at speeds of over 100 miles per hour.
Q4
Innovation is often a key aspect of adventure. Can you share an example of how you have applied innovative thinking during your adventures?
Image of Richard Brandson and Bertrand Piccard
In my opinion, the pioneering spirit is not about coming up with new ideas, but about getting rid of the certainties and habits that keep us trapped in old ways of thinking and acting. Leaving this behind to enter the doubts and the unknown, using question marks to stimulate creativity and invent new solutions, transforming the impossible into the possible - that's what innovation means for me. To give you one example, in the 1980s, I had already started aeronautical exploration in parallel to my studies. I was hang-gliding, micro lighting and, later on as a young physician assistant, I won a transatlantic balloon race. I already had my own practice when I proposed to Breitling (the watchmaker) to be my partner to fly around the world in a balloon. At that time, billionaires Richard Branson (Image) and Steve Fossett were also trying to achieve this.
I thought, "I'm very late, I may not be the first, but if I don't try, I'll never succeed." And then, suddenly, all my competitors failed. At the time of my first take-off, I gave a press conference during which I said that I was going to succeed in flying around the world in two or three weeks. It was clearly very presumptuous of me: six hours after the departure, I was floating in the Mediterranean, the balloon sank, and the coast guard had to rescue me. It was the worst failure of my life. I remember my daughter refusing to go to school afterwards out of fear of getting laughed at. Back then I learned about perseverance. Failure is only a step; you must not be defiant but persevere and try again in a different way. So I designed another balloon and adopted another strategy. However, after nine days of flight time, another disillusionment, despite setting an absolute world duration record. This time we had managed to reach Asia, however, faced with the Chinese authorities refusing to grant overflight permission for their territory, we had no option but to land in the Burmese countryside. This experience, however, gave hope to the team, especially since my competitors were also failing during this time. In 1999, the Breitling Orbiter 3 model was designed, a balloon that was completely redesigned with the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne, with an improved thermodynamic and equipped with a new engine and a new crew. And this time, we succeeded. It was a perfect flight, from start to finish.