
DOG COMMENTARY:
Sone of the more enjoyable surprises about unveiling and posting Bone Daddy’s 2300 hour vintage sports, comedy and music library are the many “special historic program events” that he recorded back in the day…..and one of my favorite pieces is evidenced in this video about the flight of Double Eagle II…..which was the historic 1st Trans-Atlantic crossing by a hot air balloon….cuz it really gives the viewer insight into what it took just to accomplish this misssion.
Double Eagle II was piloted by Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman….which became the first balloon to cross the Atlantic Ocean when it landed on August 17, 1978 in Miserey near Paris, France…..a mear 137 hours 6 minutes after leaving Presque Isle, Maine in the United States..
It could have easily been regarded as a successful crossing at the point that the Double Eagle II crossed the Irish coast on the evening of August 16…..when Shannon Airport in Ireland notified the crew about when it happened….as Larry Newman had originally intended to hang glide from the balloon to a landing….while Anderson and Abruzzo continued to fly….but the hang-glider had to be dropped as ballast earlier in this historic day….then while flying over France,….they heard by radio that authorities had closed Le Bourget Airfield and made room for them to land at the place where Charles Lindbergh had landed years before in the 1st Trans-Atlantic airplane crossing….but the crew declined the offer as they were running out of ballast and it would be too risky (to themselves and anyone below) to pass over the suburbs of Paris….so, they landed in a field of barley…..which was owned by Roger and Rachel Coquerel of Miserey….some 60 mi (97 km) northwest of Paris…..while television cameras showed a highway nearby the eventual landing spot with its shoulders and outer lanes crowded with stopped cars….as people were sweeping across the farm field to the landing spot. The gondola was protected….but most of the logs and charts were stolen by souvenir hunters.