Vijaypat Singhania's balloon flight tomorrow

Singhania hopes to climb to 70000 feet, set world record

BY A CORRESPONDENT

24th November, 2005: Vijaypat Singhania, chairman emeritus of Raymond group is set to take off on his record-breaking hot air balloon flight on November 25 2005.

Vijaypat Singhania hopes to reach an altitude of 70,000 feet in his balloon flight. The current world record for balloon flight altitude is 69500 feet, which has been achieved by a Swede. Singhania hopes to beat this Guinness book record on Saturday.

Vijaypat Singhania will take off from the Polo grounds in Race Course in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and soar for 2 hours, according to the plan.

The hot air balloon will have two components - the envelope and the capsule.

The envelope will be the inflatable part of the balloon. The capsule will house Singhania the pilot. The balloon capsule, 8X12 feet in size, is pressurised with oxygen.

At 70,000 feet, Singhania hopes to see the curvature of the earth. At this height, oxygen is more or less absent. However, Vijaypat Singhania wont be wearing a spacesuit on his balloon flight for two reasons: one, his age (67), two, its bulkiness. It is for this reason that the container is pressurised with oxygen.

The capsule also contains life support equipment like oxygen tanks and medicines. It is also fitted outside with a parachute which will deploy automatically in case of an accident.

The hot air balloon capsule also contains an array of instrumentation including barographs, altimeters, satellite phones, fuel control system, transponders, telemetry equipment, video cameras etc. 

Two helicopters will follow Vijaypat Singhania throughout the course of his balloon journey.

Vijaypat Singhania is an aviator par excellence, who has won the round-the-world-race and set the Microlite record.

Singhania is also a philanthropist, adventurer and sports enthusiast.

Earlier, Singhania has taken off on a hot air balloon journey in Gujarat, where he flew on the balloon from near Ahmedabad to Sabarkanta. With this balloon flight Singhania hopes to beat his own record as well as the Guinness record for balloon flights.

Two British balloonists Andy Elson and Colin Prescot have built the balloon and the capsule for Vijaypat Singhania's journey. Both are accomplished balloonists, one having made balloons for NASA and the other having performed balloon stunts in James Bond movies.

BY A CORRESPONDENT