Russian traveler in the night of Tuesday, July 12, began his journey around the world in a balloon. The launch took place at the airport of the Australian city of Northam at 2:30 Moscow time.
According to TASS, during the whole previous day job: team Konyukhov cooked the airfield, he collected the balloon, and closer to midnight, it began filling with helium.
Night on the tarmac at Northam was cold – the temperature dropped to almost zero degrees, but this only played into the hands of the traveler, as the wind had dropped completely.
“The first day try to climb to a height of 7 thousand meters. It will be hard to do, because the balloon would be heavy, but below is not very favourable for me, the direction of the wind,” said grooms.
He said that he hoped to cross Australia from West to East “in the first two or three days of the flight, and after a days – to reach New Zealand.
64-year-old Russian said earlier that during his trip he intends to beat the achievement of American Steve Fossett that first solo trip around the world in a balloon in 2002, he spent 13 days.
At the beginning of this year, grooms together with the master of sports on Aeronautics by Ivan Menyailo broke the world record for the longest flight by a balloon.
If all goes well, the grooms will be the fourth person in history, who will be able to fly around the planet in a balloon, and the first to be able to do it on the first try. According to experts, in one of these trips, in addition to professionalism, you always need luck, but the main factor is the weather.
