3 World Records for David Hempleman Adams
To break a previous record Dave must have exceeded the old record by over 1%. Each new record must also be ratified by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI), the aviation governing body (a point Dave forgot on his blog in his excitement!).
Non-pressurised gas balloon size classes are split into codes, starting at AA-01, the smallest (250 cubic meters of gas or less) and counting up to AA-15, the largest (22000 cubic meters and above).
The Toshiba Challenge balloon is an AA-06 size. AA-06's size limits are between 1200 and 1600 cubic meters, as Dave's balloon heats up it expands from its cold size of just over 1000 cubic meters to fit into the limits of the AA-06 class.
The distance record for both the AA-06 and AA-07 size class was 3400.39 km, giving a 1% extra target of 3434.39 km.
The world record for the longest flight in an AA-06 balloon was 80 hours and 18 minutes, the 1% extra target to beat was 81 hours 06.
Dave has so far flown in his Toshiba Challenge AA-06 balloon for 82 hours and 30 minutes and he has covered a total of 3949 km. As Dave has a smaller balloon he automatically beats the AA-07 distance record as it is considerably harder to fly a smaller balloon with less gas to play with than a larger one. So he has beaten 3 world records.
Now we just need to wait for ratification from the FAI before the 3 new world records are completely official.
