''Double Eagle V'' was the first balloon to make a successful crossing of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. It launched from

Nagashima was a series of fortresses and fortifications controlled by the Ikkō-ikki, a sect of warrior monks in Japan's Sengoku period who opposed samurai rule. It was attacked and destroyed by Oda Nobunaga in the 1570s. This, combined with the surrender ...

, Japan on November 10, 1981, and landed in

Mendocino National Forest The Mendocino National Forest is located in the California Coast Ranges#Northern Coast Ranges, Coastal Mountain Range in northwestern California and comprises . It is the only national forest in the state of California without a major paved road ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

84 hours and 31 minutes later, travelling a record . The four-man crew consisted of

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

balloonists

Ben Abruzzo Benjamin L. Abruzzo (June 9, 1930 – February 11, 1985) was an American balloonist and businessman who helped make Albuquerque, New Mexico, into an international ballooning center. He was part of the balloon crews that made the first Atlant ...

, Larry Newman, and Ron Clark, and thrill-seeking restaurateur Rocky Aoki, who helped fund the flight. The

helium Helium (from ) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, non-toxic, inert gas, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its boiling point is ...

-filled Double Eagle V spent four days crossing the Pacific before the balloon, weighed down by ice and buffeted by a storm, crash-landed in northern California, ending the nearly 6,000-mile flight. No one was hurt. Abruzzo and Newman had previously been two of the pilots of ''

Double Eagle II ''Double Eagle II'', piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman (aviator), Larry Newman, became the first balloon to Transatlantic flight, cross the Atlantic Ocean when it landed on 17 August 1978 in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours a ...

'', which in 1978 became the first balloon to cross the

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

. Double Eagle V failed to attract the same degree of media attention as the earlier flight, in part because it was overshadowed by the concurrent

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

mission

STS-2 STS-2 was the second Space Shuttle mission conducted by NASA, and the second flight of the orbiter Space Shuttle Columbia, ''Columbia''. The mission, crewed by Joe Engle, Joe H. Engle and Richard H. Truly, launched on November 12, 1981, and lan ...

. In January 2015, the crew of the ''

Two Eagles Balloon The ''Two Eagles Balloon'' is a custom balloon designed to break world records. A January 2015 launch from Japan toward North America has officially broken two world records as validated by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale. Develo ...

'' completed a flight across the Pacific Ocean. On July 15, 2015, it was verified by the

Fédération Aéronautique Internationale The World Air Sports Federation (; FAI) is the world governing body for air sports, and also stewards definitions regarding human spaceflight. It was founded on 14 October 1905, and is headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland. It maintains worl ...

as having broken the distance record of the ''Double Eagle V''.

References

Further reading