‘Up’-Inspired Transatlantic Balloon Voyage Abandoned After 12 Hours

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Update: ‘Up’-Inspired Transatlantic Balloon Voyage Abandoned After 12 Hours

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday September 12, 2013 @ 9:58pm

UPDATE FRIDAY AM: That didn’t last very long. Just 12 hours into aviator Jonathan Trappe’s attempt to cross the Atlantic in a clusterballon craft inspired by Disney/Pixar‘s Up, he was forced to land in a remote part of Newfoundland. Trappe was reportedly unharmed after a technical glitch necessitated he set down about 350 miles from the Caribou, Maine launch site. According to reports, he is making preparations to get home. On landing in Newfoundland, he wrote on his Facebook page, “Hmm, this doesn’t look like France.”

PREVIOUS, THURSDAY PM: Jonathan Trappe is no Carl Fredricksen. No, unlike the crotchety old man in Up, Trappe is a living, breathing guy — one who is attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a vehicle attached to 370 brightly colored helium balloons. The 39-year-old IT manager from North Carolina embarked Thursday morning on a planned 2,500-mile solo flight from Maine to Europe. The feat has never been tried; in fact, five people who ventured to cross the ocean in conventional hot air balloons have died trying. “I’m just as afraid of dying as anyone,” he told the London Daily Mail. “But I go forward in the spirit of adventure, doing something nobody has achieved before, and to live an interesting life.” Trappe is no dilettante: He already has flown the balloon craft — a customized rubber boat — over Lake Michigan, the Alps and, two months after Up won the animated feature Oscar, the English Channel. A team of meteorologists is guiding and advising him, but winds could see him land anywhere between Iceland and Morocco. Achieving heights of more than 25,000 feet, the journey is expected to take three to five days. Just for comparison’s sake, here’s the trailer for Pete Docter and Bob Peterson’s Up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkqzFUhGPJg

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Credits: YOUTUBE

THANE BURNETT | QMI AGENCY

Jonathan Trappe is either on the world's best ever flight of fancy or he's reached the heights of lunacy.

The North Carolina IT manager reportedly lifted off from a field in Caribou, Maine, at 6 a.m. Thursday morning - held aloft by 370 party balloon filled with helium - hoping to become the first person to use such a contraption to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

But Trappe may not be as mad as he sounds.

His ground crew, as he tries to drift across 4,000 km, includes Col. Joe Kittinger, who in 1984 made a solo balloon flight across the Atlantic in a single balloon.

"Two years of work comes down to tonight, and then this flight," Trappe, 39, wrote on his website before he gently took off.

"Two years of work and years more of dreams."

The cluster balloonist figures it could take him as long as six days.

By late Thursday, his GPS system had mapped him out to sea, north of P.E.I.

When QMI Agency talked to him last year, Trappe said he'd never lost his childlike wonder.

"(Didn't) you wonder about it, as a kid?" he asked during that interview. "Didn't you wonder about just getting enough (helium balloons) ... that you could float away?"

He started with a short flight clinging to an office chair and a bunch of ordinary balloons. Though he did carry his passport, even then.

This time, he could end up anywhere between Norway and North Africa - or Paris, as he dreams big.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMiYEMK1im0