Thank you for your understanding of this problem.
I am, sir, your most obedient servant,
Richard Branson
By that point we were all extremely tired and purposefully flying much slower than the balloon was capable of, to give us time. Then the onboard phone rang and we were told that, even though it was one o’clock in the morning, Colonel Qaddafi had granted us permission to go on. Although our route to go around the world had been made more difficult by the slower path, the bigger, immediate problem was that by slowing down we had changed direction and were headed towards a storm over Istanbul in Turkey. Hopefully we could ride above it.
Whether through the pressure of all of this, or some bug, I was beginning to lose my voice. We decided I should go on a course of penicillin just in case.
Per remains as calm as I have ever seen him. His dream, that started so many years ago, is finally coming true. And Steve is a pleasure to have on board. He is the only one of us who ventures into the kitchen, producing an excellent ‘Steve Soup’.
Morning has now broken and we have crossed the Libyan border. Miles and miles of desert and a warm welcome from air-traffic control in Tripoli. No military planes. Thank you, thank you, Colonel Qaddafi, from all of us in the ICO Global Balloon team.
Day 3, 20 December 1998
I haven’t slept since I last wrote my diary 24 hours ago. With good reason. Let me share these 24 hours with you. I only wish right now that you could be up here with us. However, there were some moments in the day I would not wish on you.
Let me first explain the challenge that faces all us balloonists who want to go around the world. It is not just the elements, or the technological challenge. Sadly, it also involves people and politics. As always in life, it is not the ordinary people who get in the way. It’s a handful of politicians at the top who selfishly make their country and this world a sadder place to live. After all, this is a sporting challenge and a mission flown in peace.
Let me begin by suggesting that you pull out a map; imagine you are a balloonist in Switzerland, in America or in Morocco as we were. Then cross out some of the countries whose politicians say you cannot cross: Russia, Iran, and Iraq (remember, two balloonists who did cross the Russian border three years ago were cruelly shot down and killed).
Imagine you’re in a race to be the first around the world, and there are seven other balloonists waiting to take off. All of them will likely go well south of Russia and Iraq. You know that they will not experience the same hold-ups that you have, so every second counts and taking a risk becomes a necessity. So, when your weatherman says he believes he can squeeze you between Iran and Russia, instead of saying no, you take that risk. Even though it means flying down a 24-mile-wide piece of land that is 2,600 miles from where you are taking off, and which is owned by Turkey and flanked by two countries in which you are not welcome.
Remember, a balloon has no propulsion except the wind. The only way of steering is to change height as you go along to try to find winds going in a different direction. It helps you to have the best weatherman in the world.
That weatherman tells you he thinks it can be done. You and your team decide to go for it. Then the night before you launch you are told that the British and the Americans are bombing Iraq and you are British and Steve Fossett is American. And this particular path is within fifty miles of Iraq.
You would probably be certifiably mad to continue and until an hour ago I thought we were mad. But we knew our weatherman – we had worked with Bob Rice before over the Atlantic and Pacific – and we knew that, if anyone could help get us through this narrow crack between two countries in which we have no permission to fly, it would be him. And the very minute I am writing this diary, we are coming out of the other end of the crack, with Iraq and Iran on one side of us and Russia on the other. We, with the help of our magnificent team back at base, have miraculously crept through.
Twenty-four hours ago we said goodbye to Libya as it was getting dark and headed out over the Mediterranean towards Cyprus. An RAF Hercules flew overhead. They said they were on their way to bomb Iraq. They wished us good luck, and we wished them the same.
I had just tried to lie down to get some sleep when Steve shouted, ‘Get your parachute on – we’ve been told there’s a very high thunderstorm ahead.’ Steve had lost his balloon in a similar thunderstorm over the Pacific only two months before, so he knew only too well what havoc they could wreak. By climbing, the wind would blow us over Iraq. What was worse – a possible storm ahead or the ‘storms’ of Iraq? In the distance, we could see the traces of anti-aircraft fire. We decided to risk the thunder and pressed on. Somebody was looking over us. We not only missed the storm but also missed Iraq by thirty miles, Iran by seven miles and Russia by ten miles. Right now our weatherman can do no wrong. If he gets us home for Boxing Day, the champagne is on me.
The views from where we are flying are breathtaking. We are crossing the snow-clad Armenian mountains; below us is a little village called Ararat, where Noah landed in his Ark. Over our headsets came the crackly sound of the air-traffic controller from Armenia: ‘On behalf of all the Armenian people we would like to say welcome.’ It was said with such genuine friendliness. If only all countries could be so welcoming.
About 2,600 miles gone – the width of the Atlantic Ocean – 20,000 left to go. Everybody feeling incredibly exhilarated. I for one need to borrow somebody else’s nails for the rest of the trip – because I no longer have any of my own left!
Day 4, 21 December 1998
We are still flying, and our voyage becomes more awesome by the minute. We have moved from Turkey through our secret passage out into Armenia and over Mount Ararat. From there we went through Azerbaijan, a new independent state in the former USSR, out across the Caspian Sea, through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (what wonderful names these states have). We then passed over Afghanistan, where a bloody civil war has raged for years. Afghanistan was one of the countries that Alexander the Great once conquered.
Then, early this morning, a wonderful but rather frightening prospect dawned on us: the winds had unexpectedly changed, and we would not now be able to fly to the north of the largest mountain range in the world, but would have to go straight across them.
These were the awesome Himalayas, never crossed before by a balloon. We would cross Nepal, a remote kingdom between India and Tibet. Nepal is where the Buddha was born, but is also known for the largest mountain on earth – Mount Everest – which soars up to nearly 30,000 feet.
This sounds wonderful, but, as with everything about trying to fly a balloon around the world, there was a catch. It is what’s known as ‘deadly curl-over’. A balloon can be grabbed by the wind and literally smashed into the other side of the mountain, as one crosses it. To avoid this we will need to fly 1,000 feet above the mountain for every 10mph we are travelling.
We did our calculations based on our present speed of 80mph, and this meant we had to fly 8,000 feet above the mountain. At present we couldn’t fly more than 30,000 feet, so we would have to fly 40,000 feet over Everest to avoid being smashed on to the other side of it.
We couldn’t do that. Could we and our team back home steer us between Everest and the next highest mountain, K2?
Well, we won’t know for a few more hours, so tomorrow if we succeed I’ll let you know.
Day 5, 22 December 1998
Well, I’m still here writing my diary, so we must have missed Everest and K2. In fact we steered right between them – more by luck than skill this time, since the mountains had taken control of our direction and they were not going to let us go.
We spent the last twenty-four hours following the beautiful mountain range. In the day they were exquisite. At night having them a few thousand feet below was an eerie feeling. Adding to our problems were masses of ice forming on top of the balloon, blocking the helium valve.
As daytime approached, enormous clumps of it would fall down on to our capsule. It was actually very
beautiful and I’ve made a wonderful film of our crossing of the Himalayas. Hannibal would have been proud of us.
Because the winds died on us we didn’t suffer the deadly ‘curl-over effect’ that I wrote about in yesterday’s diary.
Day 6, 23 December 1998
We were three hours from crossing the Chinese border when they dropped a bombshell on us. ‘We’re revoking your permission to cross China. You will not enter.’ We had no choice. We couldn’t land in the Himalayas. That would mean almost certain death. But to fly into China when specifically told not to can also mean very serious trouble.
The Chinese had originally given us permission to cross the south of China. Because we had been sucked into the Himalayas we were going to enter China 150 miles north of where they had asked us to.
So we had three hours to try to persuade them to let us in. I knew Sir Edward Heath, who was once Prime Minister of Britain and who had excellent relations with the Chinese. So our people first contacted him and he was good enough to speak to his contacts. I got through to Saskia in my office and asked her to contact Tony Blair. ‘But I don’t have the number for Downing Street,’ she said. Tired out, and, to be frank, pretty worried by now, I raised my voice. ‘Dial 192. Get it from Directory Enquiries!’
Tony Blair was good enough to write a personal letter to His Excellency Premier Zhu Rongji. I also contacted Peter Such – the head of one of our rival airlines, Cathay Pacific – who was based in Hong Kong, and who was also very helpful. And our British Ambassador in Beijing and his team were enormously helpful. Finally – a half-hour before we crossed the border – we got the word that we could enter as long as we stayed in the very bottom section of China. We soon realised this would be impossible. The winds would take us towards Shanghai – coincidentally a city I visited only two weeks ago, and a city that Virgin Atlantic has recently applied for permission to fly to.
We then had word that the Chinese had held a press conference in Beijing and had stated that we had violated their airspace without permission – if we did not rectify this promptly the consequences could be severe. At the same time we received a message from our base in London, going through the probable sequence of actions that an escort fighter plane would adopt. We went through the sequence of events that we would try to adopt ourselves in order to comply.
We were high over snow, cloud, mountains – to land would be suicidal. We then received a message from the Chinese Civil Aviation Authorities:
PLEASE BE INFORMED THAT YOU MUST LAND AT LHASA AIRPORT AND CANNOT CONTINUE FLYING OVER OUR AIRSPACE BECAUSE YOU CANNOT OBEY OUR REQUIREMENTS. PLEASE CONTACT LATER. YOU MUST OPERATE THE BALLOON AS REQUESTED BY LHASA ACC. THANKS FOR YOUR CO-OPERATION.
BEST REGARDS@OPS OF CAAC
Well, the words ‘thanks for your co-operation’ were the only friendly words we had heard in a while. A balloon cannot land at an airport. The weather conditions were atrocious, it would be dark in two hours, we were over mountains, and we were carrying five tons of propane. We were being asked, in effect, to commit suicide. I wrote back to Virgin ICO Global Balloon Base asking them to contact the Chinese, explaining all our problems. We received a response one hour later:
PLEASE BE INFORMED YOU MUST LAND. YOU CANNOT CONTINUE OVER OUR AIRSPACE.
We were in a Catch-22 situation: to attempt to land would mean certain death, but to continue, without permission, would mean that we’d almost certainly be shot down.
I contacted the British Ambassador in Beijing and explained our predicament. He promised that he and his team would stay up all night to try to resolve it. I sent the Ambassador a note to pass on to the Chinese:
WE KINDLY ADVISE THAT IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO LAND NOW WITHOUT SEVERELY ENDANGERING THE LIVES OF THE CREW AND ANY PERSONS ON THE GROUND. WE CANNOT STEER THE BALLOON AS IT GOES WHERE THE WIND TAKES IT. WE HAVE FULL CLOUD COVER AND CANNOT SEE THE GROUND. WE CANNOT DESCEND THROUGH CLOUD AS IT WILL CREATE ICE ON THE BALLOON RESULTING IN US CRASHING. WE KINDLY BRING TO YOUR ATTENTION THAT WE ARE DOING EVERYTHING IN OUR POWER TO RESOLVE THE SITUATION AND APOLOGISE PROFUSELY FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO COMPLY WITH YOUR INSTRUCTIONS. WE ARE NOT BEING DISRESPECTFUL TO THE CHINESE AUTHORITIES. WE ARE JUST IN AN IMPOSSIBLE SITUATION THAT WE CANNOT RESOLVE AT PRESENT WITHOUT ENDANGERING LIVES. WE KINDLY REQUEST THAT YOU GIVE OUR TEAM MORE TIME TO WORK ON THIS PROBLEM.
OUR PILOTS HAVE TRIED EVERY FREQUENCY THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN TO US BUT ARE UNABLE TO CONTACT YOU. THEY WILL CONTINUE TO TRY. PLEASE CAN YOU ADVISE SOME MORE HF OR VHF FREQUENCIES.
WE KINDLY REQUEST A RESPONSE TO THIS MESSAGE.
We flew on nervously. After all the personal pleas from so many world figures, we hoped the Chinese wouldn’t do anything too dramatic.
In the early hours of the morning, to our great relief, the following fax came through:
SINCE THE VIRGIN GLOBAL CHALLENGER HOT-AIR BALLOON HAS INFRINGED THE PRINCIPLES AGREED BY THE TWO SIDES AND THE PROMISES MADE BY THE UK SIDE AND DID NOT ENTER THE AIRSPACE WITHIN THE DESIGNATED AREA THE CHINESE SIDE HAD NO OPTION BUT TO DEMAND THAT IT SHOULD LAND. IN RESPECT OF THE APPEAL MADE BY AMBASSADOR GALSWORTHY THE CHINESE SIDE HAVE MADE EVERY EFFORT TO OVERCOME ALL DIFFICULTIES AND HAVE NOW DECIDED TO ALLOW THE BALLOON TO CONTINUE ITS FLIGHT. BUT THEY REQUEST THAT IT SHOULD LEAVE CHINESE AIRSPACE AS RAPIDLY AS POSSIBLE. IF THE CHINESE SIDE HAVE NEW REQUESTS THEY WILL BE IN TOUCH WITH THE BRITISH SIDE.
We cannot thank the Chinese enough. Thank you.
Day 7, 24 December 1998
A bizarre thing happened to me as we left the Chinese coast. I received word from England:
MANY CONGRATULATIONS! VIRGIN ATLANTIC HAS BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO BE THE ONLY AIRLINE TO FLY TO SHANGHAI DIRECT FROM ENGLAND. BRITISH AIRWAYS HAS BEEN TURNED DOWN. HURRY HOME.
It’s a strange world. One minute terrified of being shot down over Shanghai in a balloon, the next being given permission to start flying a 747 there!
It would have been delightful news if we hadn’t found ourselves heading for North Korea. It seems that every country that did not welcome balloonists had a magnetic attraction to them. And North Korea is one of the most closed, heavily militarist countries in the world. We had been told not even to bother to apply for overflying rights.
Bob went into overdrive to find winds to take us south through South Korea. In the meantime, Kevin Stass – who with Erin Porter had been battling back at base to get our overflight rights – thought, give it a go, and contacted the North Koreans.
To the surprise and delight of all of us, a quick response came, welcoming us to overfly. Maybe as a nation they are now ready to become part of the wider world. For whatever reason, we were extremely grateful. They were the last political headache we had to face before heading home. We now had ‘only’ the biggest ocean in the world to cross – 5,200 miles of the Pacific, America, and then the Atlantic Ocean.
After everything that had happened, in the first five days we had only travelled a third of the way around the world. The Pacific has claimed many other hot-air balloonists who have attempted a crossing. The day before Per and I successfully crossed the Pacific in a hot-air balloon, ten years ago, a delightful Japanese balloonist attempted it and perished. Only three months ago Steve Fossett hit a thunderstorm over the Pacific and was brought down near Fiji.
We therefore all have enormous respect for the Pacific Ocean, and yet strangely we were so relieved to have got through the political problems of the last few days that we felt somehow we would have a drama-free trip. It started well: we ended up crossing South Korea as it turned out, since Bob had already been working on changing our track successfully before North Korean permission came through. We then travelled on to a beautiful dawn over Mt Fuji, and Kansai in Japan. We could see literally thousands of people thronging the streets looking up at the balloon as we passed overhead. Will Whitehorn, my right-hand man, who was in Kansai, contacted the balloon and said that ‘it was one of the most remarkable sights of my life – standing and watching the whole place come to a halt’.
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bsp; The winds began to pick up, to our great relief. We found speeds of between 150 and 180mph. We were being sucked into the jetstream and we needed it. We had used up a lot of fuel flying over the Himalayas and had to race home. We had no more than five or six days’ duration left, and two-thirds of the way to go. But, with these speeds, we calculated we could cross the Pacific in less than forty hours; a day to cross America, another to cross the Atlantic and then home. Our spirits were high; we really thought we were in with a chance.
Then we received an urgent message from Bob Rice. It began: ‘We have a potential problem that is giving me great concern.’ If Bob had great concern about something then so should we. ‘Specifically,’ he went on, ‘there’s a trough out there that will have an elongated shear line from around Hawaii, northeastward. The result of a pattern shift like that will take the balloon southeast towards Hawaii and back into the Pacific Ocean. We need to get to the trough before it starts to shear. Maximum speed is critical: more so than on any other occasion.’
We knew what he meant – if we did not get through on time, we would be turned southward and end up in the water. Or, as Mike Kendrick, our base commander, said five minutes later, ‘This is a matter of saving you going into the drink, so, for God’s sake, fly.’ So we went as high as we could to get extra speed, but we could only find ten knots more at altitude. We have had a long night’s flying towards this trough. Bob reran the figures to see if ten knots was sufficient to push us through and on into America. If not, it is fortunate that the capsule was built to float. But I have no plan or wish to test it!
The diary ends here, just as things started to turn for the worse. I didn’t complete it as we were too busy just trying to stay alive. I remember just before going to sleep on that last day when we had all but crossed the Pacific and had the States ahead, with the weather forecasters saying that we would be home in two days. The winds were so strong, about 200mph, and it looked as if we were going to cross America on Christmas Day, with Father Christmas dangling far below us, and be home for Boxing Day.
Losing My Virginity: How I Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way Page 38
