Brian Jones

1947-

English Balloonist

Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard (1958- ) became the first men to circumnavigate the globe in a balloon when they completed their around-the-world flight in the Breitling Orbiter 3 on March 21, 1999. The two had set out from the Swiss Alps 20 days before, and except for perils over the Pacific Ocean, their flight had gone amazingly well.

Jones was born on March 27, 1947, in Bristol, England. He learned to fly at the age of 16, and served 13 years in the Royal Air Force (RAF). He first became involved in ballooning in 1986, when he was 39 years old, and soon acquired a commercial ballooning license. By 1989, he had been licensed as an instructor, and was later certified as an examiner for balloon flight licenses by the British Civil Aviation Authority.

His experience as a ballooning enthusiast put him into the same circles as Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss psychiatrist who came from a distinguished family of adventurers. In 1992, Piccard and Wim Verstraeten won the Chrysler Transatlantic Challenge, and when the two men decided to attempt an around-the-world flight, they chose Jones as their back-up pilot. As a result, Jones underwent all the training necessary for the flight, but was not aboard the Breitling Orbiter when it took off in January 1997. (Breitling, a Swiss watch company, sponsored the flight.)

Because of a fuel leak, Piccard and Verstraeten had to bail out, but in January 1998, they tried again on the Breitling Orbiter 2. This time Jones helped organize the flight, and assisted Alan Noble at mission control in Geneva, Switzerland, as Piccard, Verstraeten, and Andy Elson took off. Once again the attempt failed, due to a fuel leak and problems gaining permission to cross Chinese airspace.

As Piccard prepared for a third attempt on Breitling Orbiter 3, Jones initially signed on as project manager, in which capacity he was responsible for the construction of the gondola and flight systems on this ultra-high-tech, 180-foot-tall (55 m) craft. The gondola was 18 feet (5.5 m) long, and National Geographic (which published Piccard's account of their trip in its September 1999 issue) described it as "about the size of a minivan." The pressurized cabin had one bunk in which one pilot could sleep while the other flew, and up front was a computerized control panel, which allowed the pilot to operate the burners, switch propane tanks, and release empty ones.

As it turned out, Jones was Piccard's co-pilot, and the two took off at 9:05 a.m. local time on March 1, 1999, from the village of Château-d'Oex, Switzerland. Piccard later described their first meal aboard the craft as "emu steaks, rice, and vegetables, reheated in plastic bags in the kettle." Although their ultimate direction was easterly, their initial flight plan took them in a southwestward direction, to a point over the Sahara at which they began catching a jet stream that propelled them eastward.

Jones and Piccard crossed Libya at almost 90 miles (145 km) per hour, then headed southeast-ward to avoid no-fly zones over Egypt and Yemen on March 6. On the following day, they learned that Elson and Colin Prescott, who were also attempting an around-the-world balloon flight, had been forced to ditch their craft off Japan.

By March 11, Jones and Piccard had reached the eastern edge of the Asian continent, and began sailing over the Pacific Ocean. They encountered several problems in their six days over the Pacific, including a loss of contact with mission control in Geneva, as well as a broken heater that lowered the cabin temperature; but on March 16, they passed the previous distance record of 14,236 miles (22,906 km) set by balloonist Steve Fossett (1945- ). On March 19, by now on the other side of the Americas headed toward Africa, they surpassed the duration record of 17 days, 17 hours, 41 minutes. The following day, March 20, marked the end of their global circumnavigation, as they crossed the point on the Sahara where they had turned east, but they did not land until March 21, when they set down in the Egyptian desert.

Following the completion of their historic flight, the two men were feted and honored around the world. Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. awarded them its Budweiser Cup and a million-dollar prize, most of which they donated to charity.

Jones is married and a father of two, with three grandchildren.

JUDSON KNIGHT