The history of aviation begins with the balloon really...
..thousands of years ago with the first attempts...
..to get off the ground perhaps...
..but then more recently about two hundred and thirty years ago...
...the first attempt to get humans off the ground.
I guess its the simplest form of aviation...
..and even today we still see lots of records being attempted...
..for hot air ballooning.
Balloons are always attractive to people...
..if you take a bunch of children and fly a balloon past them...
..they will all smile.
There is something gentle about a balloon...
..something beautiful, serene...
..balloons are loved by everybody.
We were competing with British Airways with their three hundred and fifty planes.
So we need to come up with fun ways...
..of promoting the airline, getting Virgin on the map.
Richard Branson is one of the most exciting pioneers alive today...
..and certainly no stranger to record-breaking having set the Atlantic crossing record...
..by boat a few years before his balloon trip.
I got a knock on my boat door, where I lived on a houseboat...
..and Per Lindstrand said...
..okay you've done it in a boat I think we could do it in a balloon.
So I asked him are you married, yes...
..do you have children, yes...
..ok well I presume that you worried about the safety aspects then let's give it a go...
..sounds like a great adventure and a great adventure it was.
One of the greatest challenges of the 20th century...
..in aviation was to fly across the Atlantic in a hot air balloon.
We finally saw it happen in 1987, thanks to two really iconic pioneers Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand.
Well look I love adventure.
I love trying to achieve things that haven't been achieved before.
You know the furthest anybody had been at that stage was six hundred miles.
The Atlantic is three and a half thousand miles.
It was a long...
..eventful, exciting flight
Well there was certain drama...
..during the inflation and take off, we lost a fuel tank.
Once we came across the Atlantic we climbed up in the jet stream, made it remarkably smooth.
Everyone was talking, we had the Concorde coming across and thats certainly very noticeable at the beginning.
A big bump and you think what the heck was that.
We had a bad forecast for Scotland.
We came in, in Northern Ireland.
People said land in Northern Ireland, because there is fog in Glasgow.
So we came into land, but it was too quick...
..and there were power-lines ahead...
..so we had to take off again.
And then we decided to land in water.
Having landed on land the record was already set.
Flying further won't give us anymore credibility.
So we landed in the water, and then...
..the explosive balls that separate the envelope from the gondola didn't work...
and started going up again.
At that point you don't know whether they half worked, they would break later up in flight...
..so best thing is to get our of there, so I dived out...
..and shouted at Richard dive out too..
..but he was a bit slow, by the time he got to the edge...
..the capsule was airborne, it was too late to jump.
So he sailed up and I'm now in the water with nothing but my overall on.
He's on the upper deck on the capsule...
..with a life vest, with emergency rations...
..emergency transmitter, the whole lot...
..and I had nothing.
So I climbed back into the capsule...
..and decided to try to fly the beast down.
So sat down and started flying it.
And to my great relief, as I came through the clouds...
..I saw the HMS Argonaut, and two helicopters...
..and realised they had obviously seen me.
And I thought the best bet was to...
..have a go at taking the balloon down as slowly as possible...
..and then throwing myself off at about 40 feet...
..and obviously making sure that I threw myself off down wind of it.
So as we were coming down I put the door back in...
..got rid of my parachute, got up onto the top...
..and fortunately at the right moment threw myself off into the water...
...which was freezing cold.
The helicopter from the ship, HMS Argonaut...
..that found me, after two hours.
At that point he didn't bring down the cable.
He went round in a circle, I thought what's he doing?
I was about to show him my fist, but my fist hit a rubber dinghy...
..with a couple of kids in, they'd seen me on the shore line and come out.
And they dragged me on board the boat and back into Portrush.
But there was two hours in twelve degree water...
I was probably about ten, fifteen minutes from giving in.
And we did achieve it.
It was a rather dramatic ending being pulled out of the sea by a helicopter.
That was my first experience...
..and the Guinness World Records team were fantastic in their support and help.
It takes an exceptional amount of courage to tackle a long distance hot air balloon journey...
..especially when crossing an ocean where you're so exposed...
..to the elements and to the unpredictability of the weather.
Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand faced so many challenges and yet proved themselves to be...
..completely worthy of their Guinness World Records achievement.