Wild launch of an ill-fated race Honoring the bicentennial of the first manned balloon flight, 19 gas balloons representing nine countries prepare to take off from Paris’s Place de la Concorde in the face of a violent thunderstorm last June 26. First to launch, the translucent polyethylene balloon manned by Americans Maxie Anderson and Don Ida lifts off at far left on a flight that would end tragically the next day in West Germany. The miracle of manned flight was achieved for the first time on November 21, 1783, near Paris’s Bois de Boulogne. On that date two young Frenchmen, Jean François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent, Marquis d’Arlandes, made a 25-minute flight in a hot-air balloon designed by the Montgolfier brothers, Joseph and Etienne. This year in celebration of ballooning’s bicentennial, the French Air Museum commissioned the construction of a replica of the Montgolfier balloon with an envelope fashioned of coated nylon in place of the original paper-and-linen fabric. The Montgolfier balloon was designed with an open gallery around the base as a platform for the pilots – a feature abandoned in favor of the suspended gondola. Seen here soaring above the 984-foot spire of the Eiffel Tower beside the River Seine, the Montgolfier replica rides cloudless skies on a light summer breeze. Balloonists at the Place de la Concorde five days later were less fortunate. They had gathered to compete in an event sponsored by the Aero Club of France combining two races – one honoring the U.S. publisher and balloon enthusiast James Gordon Bennett, the other commemorating the French inventors of the manned gas balloon, Professor Jacques Charles and assistants Jean and Nicolas Robert. Entries in the Gordon Bennett Race were official representatives of their respective countries. Those in the Charles and Robert Race – including pilots Cynthia Shields, Maxie Anderson and Don Ida – participated privately. The event attracted balloonists from all over the world, including multiple teams from West Germany and the U.S., and one from as far away as Japan. It was “The Olympics of ballooning”, one pilot put it. As an estimated crowd of 300000 gathered in the square for lift-off, gusting winds and threatening clouds delayed the launch. “It was the worst launch weather I’ve seen in 30 years” recalls one veteran balloonist. In an effort to avoid the oncomming storm, pilots Anderson and Ida launched in midafternoon, followed by fellow American Cynthia Shields and a German/Canadian entry, Augsburg. Within minutes Anderson radioed to the race control center: “We’re being sucked up in this weather – I’d advise no further launchings until conditions improve”. The remaining 16 balloons battened down as the storm struck the launch site. Rain fell in torrents, lightning arced nearby, and winds up to 35 miles an hour tore at anchor ropes. Gas-envelopes slammed together, releasing precious helium. Singing in the rain – a pair of young enthusiasts ignore the storm sweeping over tethered balloons at the launch site. Within an hour and a half the storm passed. Partially inflated balloons swell with helium pumped in through flexible hoses. European balloonists, accustomed to use of dangerous hydrogen, welcomed supplies of the safer gas. Young French Scouts volunteer helping hands beside the American balloon Old Glory as crew make final adjustments in ballast, mostly sand, packaged in bags for controlled jettisoning. And the 16 balloons lifted off in turn, but prospects for the race were dim. Aerial parade – follows clearing skies as officials give permission to renew launching. Balloons positioned farthest downwind go first to avoid collisions with neighbors. In this view looking northward past the Obelisk of Luxor, Olympus rises ahead of the French Post Office balloon, Megève, poised for take off. Last in line, Polonez and Rosie O’Grady’s Flying Circus suffer no penalty, since the only objective is distance. With a 1500-foot cloud ceiling the balloons flew at low altitude, some with dramatic results. Shortly after launch a Dutch pilot flew so low he nearly collided with the Paris Opera building and was obliged to land soon after. In a memorable gesture race officials awarded the pilot a free season ticket for this winter’s performances. Fewer than half the balloonists chose to fly at night. Most, including Shields, landed before dark to the north and east of Paris. Those who remained aloft included the Americans Maxie Anderson and Don Ida and the Polish team Stefan Makné / Ireneuz Ciesiak. By next afternoon tragic news arrived: Anderson and Ida had died in a landing accident near Bad Kissingen, West Germany. Last to launch and last to land, the Polish team won the Gordon Bennett Race with a flight of 428 miles, from Paris to a point near the Czech border. The U.S.’s Rosie O’Grady’s Flying Circus came second, with a flight of 326 miles.

The Fantastic Flight of the Cote d’Or TO GO OR NOT TO GO? The storm decided it. Dark clouds and gusting winds threatened to close the launch site. The balloon ahead of me, Maxie Anderson and Don Ida’s Viking Maru, had already taken off; the one behind, Augsburg, was eager to be gone. Above me my own balloon, Cote d’Or, strained at the ropes like Pegasus at the bit. It was now or never. Reassuring my crew with one final glance, I gave the onder: “Launch!”. As if in answer, there was a violent crack of lightning and peak of thunder. But suddenly we were airborne – copilot Rien Jurg, National Geographic photographer Otis Imboden, and I – climbing gently above the Place de la Concorde and releasing ballast as we went in order to gain altitude. As we cleared the roof terrace of the Hôtel de Crillon, I saw a flash of familiar faces gathered around the tables below, and I thought, “Have some sand in your tea, dears.” A quick glance behind told me that Augsburg had lifted off, though a momentary downdraft swept the balloon perilously close to the ground. While Maxie’s radio warning against further launchings came within moments, Cote d’Or was already airborne, and there was nothing to do then but fly the race. Such a decision is irrevocable. Mechanically, I assessed our situation – 16 bags of sand ballast – not enough to risk a night flight in such unstable conditions, knowing from experience that updrafts and downdrafts consume ballast. Our air-to-ground radio did not function properly, and I could only think of the concern reflected in the eyes of my crew as we made our dramatic takeoff. A canopy of darkness shrouded Paris as Cote d’Or skimmed east of the Seine just ahead of the storm. From our gondola the balloon Augsburg, having launched immediately behing Cote d’Or, appeared half enveloped by clouds, far right, only shortly before beginning its descent and landing just outside Paris. Ballasting carefully, we stayed beneath the overcast, with the great Parisian plain spread out before us. Only one major obstacle loomed ahead, the massive 40-story column of Tour Pleyel, a modern skyscraper, center foreground. But it was well below us, and seemed headed to the left of it. Then a sudden downdraft caught us, dropped us a hundred feet or more, and aimed us directly at the building. ”No more ballasting, everybody down!” I shouted, as Cote d’Or’s gasbag collided with the building and our gondola swung inward against the metal-and-concrete facade projecting out from heavy plate windows. And then we were brushing along the side of the building, towing the gondola with three cowering aeronauts inside. I had the curious sensation of a sleepwaker watching her own dream, or rather nightmare. Had we ballasted just before or during impact, the result might have been fatal. With increased buoyancy the gas envelope could have scraped its way up the concrete face of the building, probably ripping the fabric to shreds and dumping us several hundred feet to the street below. Instead, Cote d’Or simply rolled around a corner of the building and spun gracefully away, apparently no worse for wear. None of us had panicked during the crisis. As we drifted away from the building, Otis surveyed the lines overhead and reported, “Everything seems okay, no problem.” Rien’s only reaction was a shake of the head and muttered, “Oh boy, oh boy!” It was literally our last contact with Paris. Carried northward by the storm, we gradually left the city and then the suburbs behind and came to open country. Soon it would be time to land. There was still plenty of light, so we could carefully pick our own spot, and we chose a small village whose name turned out to be Villiers-Adam. At 5 p.m. we began our descent, with Otis on the dragrope, me at the release valve, and Rien on the emergency rip line for the gas envelope. We landed like a feather, drifting across a wheat field at a height of about three feet and touching down at last in what is known among balloonists as a “stand-up” landing. Stepping out of the gondola, we were met by villagers who had seen the balloon, and moments later by the owners of the field, a farmer and wife named Plisson. “Bienvenu,” people in the crowd exclaimed, almost as though they had expecting us. Someone pulled out a map to show us where we were, north of Paris. “Just over there,” he said proudly, “lies Nesles-la-Vallée, where the first manned gas balloon landed in 1783. You are most welcome.” It was incredible that we had come so close to landing at the very site that ended the Charles and Robert flight our race had been planned to honor. I had read that one of the earlier balloon landings had been met by a crowd of suspicious peasants armed with pitchforks. Now, two centuries later, we were greeted with traditional French kindness and hospitality. In return, we later paid Monsieur Plisson for the minor damage we had caused his wheat. After a toast from the champagne bottle I had brought along, we packed up the balloon. As souvenirs of our visit I presented the Plissons with a toy balloon and one of our remaining bags of ballast. Then we hurried back to the farmhouse. There was a special event on television – the launching of the bicentennial balloon race from Place de la Concorde! By CYNTHIA SHIELDS

Last Ascent of a Heroic team Typically, when trouble came, their first thought was of others. Caught in violent updrafts shortly after launch, Maxie Anderson and Don Ida spent precious seconds radioing the ground in an attempt to warn fellow balloonists of the danger. Although two other crews had already launched, the flight director’s dicision to delay lift-off more than an hour for the remaining 16 balloons may well have saved lives and prevented injuries. For the two veteran balloonists – Anderson with wife, Patty, and Ida – the bicentennial race offered the chance to practice for a cherished goal: nonstop circumnavigation of the earth by balloon. Anderson had already flown more than a third of the distance – some 9,000 miles – in three memorable flights. The first, with teammates Ben Abruzzo and Larry Newman, leaped the Atlantic for the first time by balloon, an accomplishment for which the trio was awarded the National Geographic Society’s John Oliver La Gorce Medal. The second flight, with Anderson’s son Kristian, then 23, set another record by crossing North America nonstop. The third flight, with Don Ida in a balloon christened Jules Verne, spannend nearly 3,000 miles, from Luxor, Egypt, to Hansi, India, before a small leak in the gas envelope forced the pair to land just short of a major hurdle, the Himalayas. That was their first attempt at an around-the-world flight. “In time they would have made it around the world,” declares Jim Mitchell, a longtime crew member and friend. “Neither man knew what it meant to quit.” In the race last June, after initially being carried aloft by updrafts, Anderson and Ida flew eastward across France, Luxembourg, and West-Germany at altitudes as high as 9,000 feet. Nearing the East-German border on the second afternoon of the race, Anderson and Ida radioed West-German authorities that they intended to land near the town of Bad Kissingen, some 350 miles east of Paris. The balloonists had been unable to obtain permission to enter East-Germany. No one witnessed the landing, though a distand observer saw the balloon descend beyond a line of trees, then sighted the gas envelope rising high without the gondola. Later inspection at the crash site suggested a malfuntion in the release mechanism: Instead of separating cleanly at the moment of touchdown, envelop and gondola rose again. At an estimated height of 130 feet, the gondola broke away and plummeted to earth with Anderson and Ida in it. The envelope came to rest in some trees three miles downwind. In an interview shortly before launch, Maxie Anderson had contrasted the art of ballooning 200 years ago with the sport as it is practiced today. “We understand it a little bit better now,” he said. “I’m not sure we’ll fly it any better.”