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T H E B I G S PA C E
B A L LO O N
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Our team includes:
John Ackroyd - Designer & Consultant Engineer, who has worked on a range of balloon based projects
including Balloon projects; the first being the “Endeavor” round the world project for Julian Nott, designing the pressurized crew capsule which was molded in Kevlar East Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, as well as
the pressurised capsules for Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand’s high altitude crossings of the Atlantic
and Pacific, and their round the world attempts; as well as Per’s high altitude capsule in which he reached
65,000 feet in Texas.
Other projects include the extraordinary Earthwinds R.T.W. balloon, working in the USA for several
years and more recently the mega balloon (worlds largest inflatable) used at the opening ceremony of
the 2010 commonwealth games.
Andy Elson - Balloonist and Engineer, Andy has been involved in a huge range of balloon projects
including several record breaking balloon attempts including piloting the world’s first hot air balloon flight
over Mt Everest 1991, working as both designer and co-pilot with Colin Prescot on the Brietling Orbiter II
balloon flight from Switzerland to Burma in 1998.
He was also involved with the QinetiQ1 balloon as both pilot and balloon fabricator, Andy still has the
main equipment in storage, used in the fabrication of the huge balloon envelope made for their attempt
ICY SCIENCE | WINTER 2013- 2014