Round the world in 13 days – by balloon

A 65-year-old Russian adventurer was on the brink of setting a record for flying solo in a balloon around the world nonstop and was expected to land in Australia today, his son said yesterday.

Fedor Konyukhov hopes to land near Northam in Western Australia state, shaving two days off the current record of 13 days and eight hours set by American businessman Steve Fossett in 2002, Oscar Konyukhov said.

Fedor lifted off from Northam at 7.30am local time on July 12 in a carbon box two metres high, 2m long and 1.8m wide suspended from a 56m-tall helium and hot-air balloon.

His father had another 3000km to go before he hoped to cross the southwest tip of Australia somewhere between Cape Leeuwin and Albany after 8am today, Oscar Konyukhov said.

He said his father had endured the worst of the journey in recent days as he was blown south into the Antarctic Circle in the winter gloom where temperatures outside the gondola dropped to minus 50 degrees Celsius. The temperatures inside the gondola were uncertain, but the heating system could not cope.

‘‘It is scary to be so far down south and away from civilisation,’’ Fedor Konyukhov wrote on his website.

‘‘This place feels very lonely and remote. No land, no planes, no ships. Just (a) thick layer of cyclonic clouds below me and (a) dark horizon on the east,’’ he said.

Oscar said the Indian Ocean crossing had been tough on his father physically and mentally as he rode the polar jet stream south, partly to avoid a low pressure system, before tracking northeast toward Australia.