BRUCE COMSTOCK
Adventures
Flying, Making and
Competing in Balloons
In the spring of 1995 my friend Ed Heltshe phoned and said Steve Fossett's trans-Atlantic Roziere balloon was for sale. "What don't you and I make a really long distance balloon flight?" he asked. He would buy the balloon and pay the expenses for the flight if I would cobble together the balloon system and other equipment we would need.
That is what led to our weekend pleasure flight from Aspen, Colorado to Altoona, Pennsylvania. The complete story of this flight is told in my book A Life in the Air.
Click amidst the first image to be able to read the photo captions.
Aspen to Altoona
A Roziere balloon has a gas cell with a hot air cone beneath it to allow the gas temperature to be kept constant.
I start planning by developing a detailed equipment list, complete with weights.
Ed had named this flight project "Tranquil Voyager". It lived up to its name.
A Roziere balloon has a gas cell with a hot air cone beneath it to allow the gas temperature to be kept constant.