{"id":15203279,"date":"2026-08-22T15:44:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:44:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/breitling-orbiter-3-first-balloon-around-the-world-1999\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T15:57:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T13:57:21","slug":"breitling-orbiter-3-first-balloon-around-the-world-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/fr\/breitling-orbiter-3-first-balloon-around-the-world-1999\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Balloon to Circle the World"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\r\n\r\n<p>On 21 March 1999, two exhausted men brought a towering silver balloon down onto the Egyptian desert and stepped into the history books. Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones had just done what pioneers had tried and failed to do for decades: fly all the way around the world, non-stop, in a balloon. No engine. No fuel to steer by. Just the winds of the planet and their nerve.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>Their craft was Breitling Orbiter 3, and their journey, nearly twenty days adrift over oceans and continents, claimed what was often called the last great prize in aviation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f5f5f5;padding:20px;border-radius:8px;margin:24px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 10px;font-weight:700;font-size:18px\">Quick Facts: Breitling Orbiter 3<\/p><ul style=\"margin:0;padding-left:20px;line-height:1.8\"><li><strong>Feat:<\/strong> First non-stop round-the-world balloon flight<\/li><li><strong>\u00c9quipage:<\/strong> Bertrand Piccard (Switzerland) and Brian Jones (Britain)<\/li><li><strong>Lanc\u00e9 :<\/strong> Ch&acirc;teau-d&rsquo;Oex, Switzerland, 1 March 1999<\/li><li><strong>Landed:<\/strong> Egyptian desert, 21 March 1999<\/li><li><strong>Dur\u00e9e:<\/strong> 19 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes<\/li><li><strong>Distance:<\/strong> Around 45,700 km (28,400 miles)<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">The last great prize<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Orbiter 3 was a Roz&iuml;ere balloon, a clever hybrid that combines a cell of helium with a hot-air envelope, letting the crew ride day and night without burning through their fuel too quickly. From the Swiss Alps the winds carried them out over Europe, down across Africa, over Asia and the Pacific, and finally home across the Atlantic. Bertrand Piccard came from a dynasty of explorers: his grandfather Auguste was the first man to reach the stratosphere by balloon, and his father Jacques dived to the deepest point in the ocean.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=704792997  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/bertrand-piccard-brian-jones-1999.jpg\" alt=\"Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, 1999\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, the two men who first flew a balloon around the world non-stop. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kSmrHsG2v8I\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #1565c0;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;The news of your splendid achievement has delighted us all.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Queen Elizabeth II<\/strong> &mdash; In a message to the balloonists<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">Down to the last drop<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>It was desperately close. The six burners that kept the balloon warm ran on propane carried in cylinders along the gondola, and by the final days the crew was nursing their dwindling supply across the Atlantic. They had begun with nearly four tonnes of propane; when they touched down in Egypt, barely 40 kilograms remained. After two earlier failed attempts, in 1997 and 1998, the margin between triumph and coming up short had never been thinner.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f8f9fa;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:20px 22px;margin:18px 0 24px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;font-size:16px;line-height:1.7;display:flex;gap:20px;align-items:flex-start\"><div><em>&ldquo;We took off as friends and we landed as brothers.&rdquo;<\/em><div style=\"margin-top:10px;font-size:14px;color:#555\"><strong>Bertrand Piccard<\/strong> &mdash; At a press conference after the flight<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin:0 0 24px;width:100%\"><img data-opt-id=1132667278  fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/ml5psubhxdln.i.optimole.com\/cb:0e0_.b970\/w:auto\/h:auto\/q:mauto\/ig:avif\/https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/08\/breitling-orbiter-3-gondola-smithsonian.jpg\" alt=\"Breitling Orbiter 3 gondola at the Smithsonian\" style=\"width:100%;height:auto;max-width:100%;display:block;border-radius:6px\"><figcaption style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;margin-top:6px;font-style:italic\">The cramped Breitling Orbiter 3 gondola, now preserved at the Smithsonian, was home to the two men for nearly three weeks. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lxYFURQ7Ehw\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size:13px;color:#777;text-align:center;font-style:italic\">Bertrand Piccard on the adventuring spirit that later carried him around the world again, this time in a solar-powered aircraft.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top:22px\">From wind to sunlight<\/h2>\r\n\r\n<p>Piccard was not finished with circling the globe. In 2016 he did it again in Solar Impulse, an aircraft that flew day and night on nothing but sunlight, closing a remarkable personal arc from balloon to solar plane. The little Orbiter 3 gondola now rests in the Smithsonian in Washington, a reminder that even in the age of jets, one of aviation&rsquo;s greatest adventures was won by two men, a bag of gas, and the patience to let the whole world turn beneath them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden;margin:24px 0\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qXAK2zPL-1A\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0;border-radius:8px\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n<p><em>Sources: F&eacute;d&eacute;ration A&eacute;ronautique Internationale, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, bertrandpiccard.com, Wikipedia.<\/em><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background:#f0f4ff;border-left:4px solid #5C91FF;padding:16px 20px;margin:32px 0 8px;border-radius:0 8px 8px 0\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 8px;font-weight:600;color:#333\">Articles similaires<\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/rutan-voyager-nine-days-without-landing\/\">The Rutan Voyager: Nine Days Without Landing<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:4px 0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/around-the-world-on-nothing-but-sunlight-the-solar-impulse-story\/\">Le tour du monde \u00e0 la seule lumi\u00e8re du soleil : l&#039;histoire de Solar Impulse<\/a><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 21 March 1999, two exhausted men brought a towering silver balloon down onto the Egyptian desert and stepped into the history books. Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones had just done what pioneers had tried and failed to do for decades: fly all the way around the world, non-stop, in a balloon. No engine. No [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":15202924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[665,666],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15203279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aviation-world","category-history-and-legends"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Breitling Orbiter 3: First Balloon Around the World<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In 1999 Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones flew the Breitling Orbiter 3 non-stop around the world, the last great balloon prize.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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