Climbs To 32,500 Feet

Enduring temperatures of -76 degrees Fahrenheit and fighting off a mild bout of hypoxia, David Hempleman-Adams recently broke the world altitude record in a hot air balloon. The British explorer flew to 32,500 feet -- higher than the cruising altitude for many passenger jets.

The Sunday Telegraph reports it was Hempleman-Adams' fourth attempt to break the old record, set by American Carol Davis in 1979, of 31,299 feet. He ascended from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.

"Only a mad Englishman would do that in an open basket," said one airline pilot, when learning there was a hot air balloon flying above him.

The flight was not without its harrowing moments -- in addition to the episode of hypoxia, Hempleman-Adams also fought frozen equipment, burner problems, and a fuel shortage that required him to descend at 1,500 feet per minute.

"It was pretty hairy," Hempleman-Adams said. "Doing it at that speed made the balloon very unstable and it was rotating and shaking the whole way down. It was such a hard landing, I think I must be two inches shorter."

The balloon came down near the only lake and powerlines in the area -- but managed to miss both.

Compared to his three previous attempts to fly a hot air balloon to the North Pole, and three trips to cross the Atlantic Ocean, Hempleman-Adams says this record attempt was his hardest-fought.

In fact, he didn't even tell his wife.

"So that's where Dad has been," she told the couple's three daughters. She heard of the record flight while she was shopping.

After the close-call landing, an official observer took the balloon's flight recorder to verify the record-breaking flight.

FMI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hempleman-Adams