Cluster balloonist crosses English Channel

June 1, 2010 — It looked like a scene in the Disney movie Up, except there was no house attached to the 70 brightly colored helium-filled balloons. Instead, the balloons carried 36-year-old Jonathan Trappe, sitting in a specially equipped chair. On May 28, Trappe, an EAA member from Raleigh, North Carolina, successfully crossed the English Channel in his cluster balloon, touching down on a farm near Dunkirk, France after cutting some of the balloons away. Trappe told the The Times, “Isn’t it everyone’s dream? Grabbing on to toy balloons and flying off into open space?” Reports said it was the first crossing of a significant body of water by a cluster balloon. Trappe’s two-hour flight departed the Kent Gliding Club at Challock Airfield in southeastern England. Trappe told the Times he had a "chat" with someone out for a walk as he passed over the famous White Cliffs of Dover. Besides balloons and a chair, Trappe’s equipment also included an aircraft transponder, oxygen system, aircraft radios, emergency locator beacon, in-flight satellite tracking and a radio tracker. It wasn’t the first flight for Trappe. In April, he made the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest cluster balloon flight, covering more than 109 miles in an overnight flight which lasted almost 14 hours over North Carolina is his “aircraft” called The Spirit Cluster. The cluster officially became a federally registered aircraft, with an airworthiness certificate and the registration plate N878. Trappe credits the EAA and EAA Chapter 1114 for helping him obtain an Experimental designation for his balloon from the FAA. He says that without the certification, England's Civil Aviation Authority would not grant authorization to operate the balloon in European airspace. "It was just an exceptional, quiet, peaceful experience," Trappe told Sky News television, which covered the adventure. Click here to watch video coverage from Sky News.

Jonathan Trappe aloft over North Carolina during his long distance record flight in April 2010. Photo credit: Jim Koepnick, EAA Jonathan Trappe holds his certificate of airworthiness after landing on farmland in France. Photo credit: Gareth Fuller/PA

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