Early this morning, the Raleigh, N.C., native became the first man to travel from England to France using cluster balloons -- a bare-bones mode of flight in which aviators sit in chairs attached to a number of small balloons and control their altitude by popping or releasing balloons.
Trappe took off from Kent in southeast England, according to CBS News, and floated for about three hours before he released some of his brightly colored balloons and touched down in a cabbage field outside Dunkirk, France.
Last month, Trappe soared into history by establishing new distance and endurance records with a 109-mile cluster balloon voyage that lasted nearly 14 hours over his home state.
But this much shorter 22-mile trip across the English Channel carries great significance for the aviator."It is such a classic challenge, isn't it? That iconic ribbon of water separating the U.K. from the continent has called to people for generations, tempting them to cross since long before you or I were born," he wrote on his website, ClusterBalloon.com, before taking off.
"I don't know if it is a siren's song, or if crossing that ribbon of water will be like breaking the ribbon at the finish line," said the pilot, who in order to comply with international aviation laws outfitted himself with a transponder, a radio, an emergency beacon, oxygen, lights, a flotation vest, a parachute -- and little else.
The 36-year-old told Sky News he enjoyed the calm voyage across the storied Channel."It was just an exceptionally quiet, peaceful experience," he said.
Trappe is only the latest in a long line of balloonists to traverse the Channel, starting in 1785 with French balloonist Jean-Pierre Francois Blanchard and American doctor and investor John Jeffries -- whose voyage wasn't as easy as Trappe's.According to the Chicago Tribune, their hydrogen balloon started leaking mid-flight and they were forced to dump all of their ballast -- and most of their clothing -- so they could stay airborne until landing in Calais.
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