From a 1783 flight that reached 10,000 feet to the US Army Air Corps' Captain Hawthorne C. Gray’s fatal ascent to 42,470 feet in 1927, the maximum altitude was only limited by the pilot’s need for oxygen.
Gray (February 16, 1889 – November 4, 1927) was a captain in the United States Army Air Corps who had some really bad luck in his ballooning efforts.
On March 9, 1927, he set an unofficial altitude record of 28,510 feet in a balloon, but passed out from hypoxia in the thin air. He regained consciousness just in time to drop ballast and slow his fall after the balloon descended on its own.
Then on May 4, he set an unofficial record for highest altitude reached by a human when he reached 42,470 feet. Because of the rapid descent of the balloon, Gray parachuted out at 8,000 feet, disqualifying him from recognition by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale which required that the balloonist land with his craft.
Finally, on November 4, 1927, Gray attempted to set an official record. He rose at about 4 mph which was half the speed he used for his March 9 flight. Somewhere between 30,000 and 34,000 feet Gray threw over an empty oxygen cylinder for ballast and the canister snapped his radio antenna, cutting him off from the ground.
After reaching an altitude of 40,000 feet, he lost consciousness. His final journal entry read “Sky deep blue, sun very bright, sand all gone.” His body was found the next day in the balloon basket in a tree near Sparta, Tennessee which is a little over 300 miles SE of the launch point.
The balloon's barographs showed that Gray had reached a height between 43,000 and 44,000 feet.
There were various theories about the cause of his death. He may have severed his oxygen hose accidentally while cutting open bags of sand ballast.
It is also possible that Gray became too cold and tired to open the valve on one of his oxygen tanks. In what is known as the standard temperature lapse rate, the temperature decreases at the rate of approximately 3.5 degrees F. per thousand feet up to 36,000 feet, which is approximately –65 degrees F. Above this point, the temperature is considered constant up to 80,000 feet.
It is also possible that one of his internal organs was ruptured by decreasing pressure. One balloon expert believed that Gray died during descent or on impact.
The board of inquiry which investigated Gray's death concluded that he died because his clock stopped, causing him to lose track of his time on oxygen and exhaust his supply.
Gray was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and buried in Arlington National Cemetery. His widowed wife and three remaining sons received his Army Air Corps insurance and $2,700, the equivalent of six month’s pay.
A helium filled balloon can float very high up into the atmosphere, but it can only rise up until the atmosphere surrounding it has the same weight as the helium in the balloon. This happens at about a height of 20 miles so, this is as far as a helium balloon can rise. Visit the Gray Archives
Hot air balloons normally fly between 1,000 and 3,000 feet in the air. In the United States, hot air balloons must fly at least 1,000 feet over the highest obstacle within 2,000 horizontal feet when flying over populated areas.
Because of the unpredictable air conditions at higher altitudes, hot air balloons normally don’t surpass 3,000 feet.
However, most balloon pilots prefer to fly at lower altitudes where the conditions tend to be more favorable and a bit warmer. Also, once you above 8,000 feet, the air starts to become thinner and going higher could result in elevation sickness.
In 2005, 67-year old Vijaypat Singhania, an Indian businessman and aviator took his hot air balloon 68,986 feet which is over 13 miles. Singhania actually set out to fly over 70,000 feet but didn’t quite reach his goal, but he broke the record of just under 65,000 feet.
The balloon Singhania used was outfitted for extreme altitudes and stood over 160 feet tall and weighed 44 tons when fully inflated. Singhania was in a pressurized cabin for just under five hours to accomplish the record. The flight began in Bombay and landed just 150 miles to the south.
On January 15th, 1991, Per Lindstrand and the eccentric billionaire Richard Branson flew a hot air balloon 4,767 miles from Japan to Canada. The balloon’s envelope was the largest ever built and it was able to reach the highest ever ground speed for a manned balloon, clocking in a max speed of 245 miles per hour.
On March 1, 1999, Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss psychiatrist and balloonist together with Briton Brian Jones were able to go around the world in just 20 days in a balloon.
NASA's gigantic, ultra-thin balloon, known as the "Big 60," broke a record for highest balloon altitude maintained during flight in 2018.
The football-stadium-size, 60-million-cubic-foot balloon was released from Fort Sumner, New Mexico and set a new sustainable-altitude record by reaching 159,000 feet (just over 30 miles) during an 8-hour flight on August 17, traveling into the stratosphere and ascending about 5 miles higher than the next-largest balloon prototype.
Visit the NASA balloon site HERE
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