About — Atlantic Explorer - The Atlantic Ocean by hydrogen gas balloon

A journey of a lifetime..

_{The Dream...}

From early childhood, Bert Padelt watched toy balloons float skyward and dreamed of flying with them.As a teenager, he befriended America’s pioneering balloonists and watched with fascination as pilots conquered the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. As an adult, he became a balloon pilot and master balloon builder, supporting legends of the sport in their record-setting flights across oceans and around theworld. Now, after decades of helping others achieve their dreams, Bert has built a balloon for himself and is ready to realize a lifelong dream of his own.

_{The Adventure...}

Bert and his friends and fellow aeronauts Peter Cuneo and Alicia Hempleman-Adams will attempt to become the first balloonists to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean in an open basket gas balloon using hydrogen for lift. Their flight from Presque Isle, ME to Europe is expected to take six days, during which
the pilots will live in the open air in an aluminum frame basket smaller than most closets. There is no respite until they reach Europe – once over water their only place to land is in the open ocean.

_{The Journey...}

Balloonists will tell you their true reward is not the records they set or the competitions they win, but the journey itself and the friends they make along the way. It starts with the process of planning the flight and anticipating every contingency as the pilots use the wind and their wits to guide the balloon to a safe landing at an unknown destination. On the ground, their launch, flight control, and retrieval teams,almost all volunteers, share in their challenge of achieving a goal few will ever reach.