Conquering another flying frontier

March 21 1999 —B ertrand Piccard and Brian Jones land their Breitling Orbiter 3balloon north ofMut, Egypt, a day after setting their round-the-world record. They took off on the first nonstop circumnavigation of Earth by balloon at 8.05am GMT on March 1 from Chateau d’Oex in the Swiss Alps.(Their route is pictured right.) After 19 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes aloft and covering a distance of 45,755km, they land at 9am GMT in a remote desert site near Mut, 483km southwest of Cairo.

They passed their round-the-world finishing point at 9.54am GMT on March 20, when they flew over a point at 9 degrees 27 minutes west longitude in Mauritania. Piccard, a 41-year-old Swiss psychiatrist who comes from a family ofpioneers, used self-hypnosis throughout the flight to help cope with the tension.Jones, a 51-year-old British balloon instructor and grandfather, relied on his rock-steady nerves.