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‘Extreme balloonist’ Sandra Rolfe landed in a field just south of Mirabel Airport Tuesday afternoon after a record-breaking run of about seven hours and 25 minutes aloft in her AX-04 hot air balloon.
Rolfe landed at 3:28 p.m. at the end of a flight that began just after sunrise near Plantagenet, Ont. The flight, if recognized by the Fédèrational Aéronautique Internationale, would be the third world ballooning record for Rolfe, 50, of Ottawa.
“I’m thawing out!” Rolfe said, when reached by phone during the drive back to Ottawa.
“It was cold and a lot faster than I expected. The wind turned before I thought it was going to turn, so my flight path wasn’t what I expected. We were constantly having to reassess where I was going and what we needed to do.”
Rolfe headed southeast after takeoff, but made a sudden dogleg to the east about an hour into the flight and headed toward the Quebec border. She reached a maximum altitude of about 1,500 feet during the flight, she said.
“I was busy. There’s not a lot of spare time,” said Rolfe, whose day job is in the human resources department of the CBC.
“Around noon I could look around and enjoy the scenery a bit. But in the beginning you’re busy because the balloon is still so heavy and at the end you’re busy because you’re trying to figure out where you’re going? How much fuel do you have? Are you going to make it? Where are you going to land? Where is the crew?”
“The winds never slowed down for us the whole day and we were heading north into the woods so she had to bail out,” said her ballooning partner, Bill Whelan, who was in one of four chase vehicles on the ground. “We still had another 25 or 30 minutes of fuel left … We were getting pretty close to Mirabel Aiport too, so that’s why we landed.”
Rolfe already holds the world record for duration and distance in the smaller AX-03 category.
The previous female record in the AX-04 category was seven hours and four minutes aloft set in January 2007 by Minako Inoue of Japan.
An AX-04 balloon, though much smaller than the hot air balloon commonly seen in the summer, still stands five storeys tall when inflated. It can lift about 320 kilograms (700 pounds).
Tuesday’s flight, while a record for a female balloonist, is far from the “general” duration record for an AX-04 balloon — an astonishing 23 hours 11 minutes aloft set by American Richard L. Jaworski in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 2007.
In addition to her world records, Rolfe holds 28 Canadian hot air ballooning records.
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
Rolfe landed at 3:28 p.m. at the end of a flight that began just after sunrise near Plantagenet, Ont. The flight, if recognized by the Fédèrational Aéronautique Internationale, would be the third world ballooning record for Rolfe, 50, of Ottawa.
“I’m thawing out!” Rolfe said, when reached by phone during the drive back to Ottawa.
“It was cold and a lot faster than I expected. The wind turned before I thought it was going to turn, so my flight path wasn’t what I expected. We were constantly having to reassess where I was going and what we needed to do.”
Rolfe headed southeast after takeoff, but made a sudden dogleg to the east about an hour into the flight and headed toward the Quebec border. She reached a maximum altitude of about 1,500 feet during the flight, she said.
“I was busy. There’s not a lot of spare time,” said Rolfe, whose day job is in the human resources department of the CBC.
“Around noon I could look around and enjoy the scenery a bit. But in the beginning you’re busy because the balloon is still so heavy and at the end you’re busy because you’re trying to figure out where you’re going? How much fuel do you have? Are you going to make it? Where are you going to land? Where is the crew?”
“The winds never slowed down for us the whole day and we were heading north into the woods so she had to bail out,” said her ballooning partner, Bill Whelan, who was in one of four chase vehicles on the ground. “We still had another 25 or 30 minutes of fuel left … We were getting pretty close to Mirabel Aiport too, so that’s why we landed.”
Rolfe already holds the world record for duration and distance in the smaller AX-03 category.
The previous female record in the AX-04 category was seven hours and four minutes aloft set in January 2007 by Minako Inoue of Japan.
An AX-04 balloon, though much smaller than the hot air balloon commonly seen in the summer, still stands five storeys tall when inflated. It can lift about 320 kilograms (700 pounds).
Tuesday’s flight, while a record for a female balloonist, is far from the “general” duration record for an AX-04 balloon — an astonishing 23 hours 11 minutes aloft set by American Richard L. Jaworski in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in 2007.
In addition to her world records, Rolfe holds 28 Canadian hot air ballooning records.
bcrawford@ottawacitizen.com
twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
