FÉDÉRATION AÉRONAUTIQUE INTERNATIONALE

FAI BALLOONING COMMISSION (CIA)

CIA BALLOON & AIRSHIP HALL OF FAME

INDUCTEES

The following have been inducted into the CIA Balloon and Airship Hall of Fame.   Check the FAI Ballooning Commission Achievements web pages for other Hall of Fame inductees.

LIVING

Bruce Comstock, USA

Bruce Comstock, born on the 24th July 1943, has done much of what there is to do in sport ballooning, from winning major championships to setting world records, from serving his fellow balloonists to building a major balloon manufacturing company.

Comstock is one of the more successful ever competition balloon pilots. He has won one World and six U.S. National Hot Air Balloon Championships. Comstock won the World Hot Air Balloon Championship in June 1981, in Battle Creek, Michigan. He has won six U.S. National Hot Air Balloon Championships -- four more than anyone else. Comstock won the U.S. National Hot Air Balloon Championships in 1972, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1982, and 1987. He finished in the top three places of the U.S. Nationals in 11 of the last 16 years of his competition career.

Comstock is a successful veteran of World Hot Air Balloon Championship competition. He has finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th in World Hot Air Balloon Championships. In addition to his win in the 1981 World Championship, these include 4th in 1973, in Albuquerque, New Mexico; 2nd in 1977, in York, England; 6th in 1979, in Uppsala, Sweden; 3rd in 1989, in Saga, Japan; and 7th in 1991, in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada.

Comstock has also set world balloon records for duration, distance and altitude. On June 17-18, 1980, he and fellow pilot David Schaffer became the first persons to fly a hot air balloon for more than a full day, setting a new world hot air balloon duration record of 24 hours, 7 minutes, 58 seconds. On December 3, 1980, he and fellow pilot Jeff VanAlstine bettered the existing world hot air balloon distance record by more than 80 miles in a flight of 494.6 statute miles, from Anderson, Indiana, to just south of Raleigh, North Carolina. On September 22, 1996, he and fellow pilot Steve Fossett set a new world altitude record for Roziere (temperature controlled gas) balloons, of 27,477 feet.

On January 15, 1994, Comstock more than doubled the world's hot air balloon Long Jump competition distance record by flying 645 statute miles on less than 37 gallons of fuel, from Atlantic, Iowa to Huntland, Tennessee. This flight was more than twice as far as the previous longest Long Jump flight, and was at the time the second longest distance ever recorded in a hot air balloon of this size. This performance has yet to be exceeded.

Comstock was the first U.S. balloonist, and the second in the world, to earn the International Aeronautic Federation (FAI) Gold Ballooning Badge with all three Diamonds. This requires having made flights of 9,000 meters (29,528 feet) altitude, 500 kilometers (310 miles) distance, 24 hours duration, and one meter pilot-declared-goal accuracy.

Comstock shared balloon technical advisor and launch director duties for two of the world's then longest distance balloon flights ever, and for the longest duration solo flight ever. These include the Solo Spirit non-stop flight half-way around the world from St. Louis, Missouri to eastern India in January 1997, the Pacific Peregrine non-stop flight from Seoul, Korea to Saskatchewan, Canada in February 1995, and the J Renee flight from Rockford, Illinois to central Myanmar in February/March of 2000. Comstock also designed and built the electronic balloon autopilots which made these solo flights possible, and has provided autopilots for other long distance flights. He has also been a technical advisor and launch team member for several other very long distance Roziere flights.

Comstock served on the International Juries for the 2nd World Hot Air Balloon Championship in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1975, and the 1st World Gas Balloon Championship in Augsburg, West Germany, in 1976.

In 1977 Comstock received the Montgolfier Diploma, the world's highest honor for a balloonist, for his impressive, consistent performance in balloon competition. This award is granted by the International Aeronautic Federation (FAI), the world governing body for sport aviation.

Comstock has also served the ballooning community in a variety of ways. He was President of the Balloon Federation of America (BFA), the national organization of balloonists, and the U.S. delegate to the International Ballooning Committee of the International Aeronautic Federation from 1973 to 1975.

From 1971 to 1972 he was Editor of Ballooning, the magazine of the BFA. He was a member of the BFA Board of Directors from 1972 to 1975.

Comstock started flying balloons in 1970. He has been an active balloon pilot instructor since 1971. He has made more than 1,500 balloon flights (several thousand logged hours). He has a reputation among ballooning friends as a competent and cautious pilot.

Comstock has served as a Designated Examiner for balloon oral and flight tests for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and has been an FAA Designated Manufacturing Inspection Representative (DMIR) for purposes of inspecting newly manufactured balloons for airworthiness certification. He has received the FAA Service Award for preparing educational material on ballooning and instructing FAA personnel in the basics of safe ballooning.

Until early 1994, Comstock owned and managed Cameron Balloons U S, a leading U.S. balloon manufacturing company. In 1972, he established the first FAA-certificated balloon maintenance facility in the United States, and is an FAA-certificated balloon repairman.

Comstock has a strong, continuing interest in all forms of lighter-than-air flight. He is a long-time enthusiast of gas ballooning, having made 14 flights, including a flight from Murren, Switzerland, 140 miles over the Alps (1974), a 1520 mile Roziere flight from Aspen, Colorado to Altoona, Pennsylvania (1995), and a Roziere world altitude record flight (1996). His gas balloon experience includes pure gas flights using hydrogen, helium, and anhydrous ammonia as lifting gases, and Roziere flights using helium.

He has piloted both gas and hot air airships (blimps). In a series of flights beginning in 1975, he developed techniques for safe night flight in hot air balloons.

Comstock is also a certificated airplane pilot.

Comstock was graduated by the University of Colorado and studied at The University of Michigan graduate school. His current focus is the planning and making of challenging balloon flights. He resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Mr. Karl STEFAN, USA

Born July 28th 1916 in Omaha, NB. Officer, pilot, engineer and balloon pilot and LTA engineer.

Officer in U.S. Navy from 1935. Graduated U.S. Naval Academy 1940. Pilot (aeroplanes and helicopters). Master degree (Aero-Engineering) University of Minnesota 1945. Research and Development Administrator U.S. Navy. Retired 1960. LTA engineer for the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Research Engineer for "The Balloon Works", "The Tyler Airship Company" and "The ILC-Dover projects".

Karl Stefan made his first gas balloon flight 1956 and his first hot air balloon flight 1961.

On 9th June 1971, Karl Stefan set a new World Altitude record in class AX8 with 9,506 meters (31,189 ft). His research before that flight was made available to fellow aeronauts in a report, "Performance Theory For Hot Air Balloons", published in ballooning magazines and
LTA-symposiums. He also helped other pilots set altitude records, both in gas and hot air balloons.

From 1979 Karl Stefan was the US delegate to the FAI International Ballooning Commission, CIA. He was Vice President from 1981 to 1983
and for many years also member of a number of sub-committees. He has been the chairman of the CIA Records Review Subcommittee since
1989.

For a record period of 10 years, from 1984 to 1994, Karl Stefan was the President of the CIA. During this time he was a very active, able and
popular president. He initiated the present structure of the CIA with several subcommittees doing the work under his leadership between the
annual plenary meetings. He also initiated the CIA Newsletter through which important information was circulated to aeronauts around the
World.

Karl Stefan was awarded the Montgolfier Diploma for the year 1971.

Mr. Alfred ECKERT, Germany

Alfred Eckert has been a prominent German gas balloonist since 1953 and is known for his colourful personality and his high quality collection of ballooning antiques and memorabilia as well as for his flying exploits.

Born in 1916, Mr. Eckert spent his earlier years as a painter, photographer, publisher and graphic designer in Augsburg, Germany. He made his first balloon flight in May of 1953 and earned his gas balloon license in May of 1955 (he got his hot air balloon license in 1983).

He earned the German Free Balloon Golden Achievement Medal no. 11 in 1957 and the FAI Montgolfier Diploma for the year 1959.

Some remarkable flights of his were:

1959: Landed on a glacier and was rescued by aircraft.

1960: Crossed the English Channel from Lydd, UK to Brá gge, Belgium in 4 hours, 15 minutes.

1990: Made his 1000th gas balloon flight on October 27, 1990. Total of 3590 hours & 55,198 km.

1998: Made his 1020th gas balloon flight together with Jojo Maes (1213) and Helma Sjuts (1118).

Mr. Eckert also created the famous Balloon Museum in Gersthofen, Germany (just north of Augsburg and close to the club launch site). The majority of the exhibits are from his personal collection. The museum opened in 1986.  As an author, Mr. Eckert has written six books on ballooning and has been the publisher and editor of the bi-monthly magazine "Der Freiballon" since 1976. His books are:

POSTHUMOUS

Jean-Pierre François Blanchard

Jean-Pierre François Blanchard was born the second son of seven children on the 4th of July 1753 to his father, a multi-talented craftsman in Les Andelys-en-Normandie (France).

After only some basic education, he is finding himself in his father’s workshop where he quickly learns his trades. At the age of twelve he already invents a rat-trap where the beasts shoot themselves, and four years later he seems to have built a "mechanical" car (without horses) in which he made a journey from Andelys to Rouen, although no plans or precise descriptions were ever found in this respect. However, the newspaper "Le Journal de Paris" relates this voyage on the 17th of August 1779, and announces several new voyages during the following weeks. The same newspaper also announces that J-P Blanchard is the inventor of a revolutionary new hydraulic pump, able to bring water to an elevation of three hundred feet at a rate of 82000 litres per hour. Having unsuccessfully demonstrated his latest invention at several occasions to the authorities, he decides in early 1781 to move to Paris and to start work on a project preoccupying him for several years already: The construction of a "bird like flying machine, with six wings and a tail".

On the 5th of May 1782, the day announced by the "Journal de Paris" to be the day of the first flight, he is however unable, witnessed by a huge crowd, to take off and he becomes the laughing stock of Paris. On the 23rd of May, the French scientist Joseph-Jérome Lefrançois de Lalande, member of the "Académie des Sciences" publicly declares that J-P Blanchard is a fool and that man will never fly.

J-P Blanchard, inspired by experiences conducted by Tiberio Cavallo, an Italian physicist from Napoli, the Barnabites brothers Stella and Cortenovis from Udine, and by Joseph Priestley’s work and book "Research and observations on different kinds of air", is enthusiastically following the Montgolfier Brothers’ and professor Charles’ experiences in 1783, and decides to build his own "lighter than air flying machine".

On the 2nd of Mars 1784, J-P Blanchard is finally taking off for the first time in his hydrogen-filled aerostat from the Champ de Mars in Paris. On the 7th of January in 1785, with his American physician friend and sponsor John Jeffries (1744 – 1819), J-P Blanchard successfully makes the first balloon flight across the English Channel from Dover to land after 2 hours and 25 minutes in the forest of Guines near Calais. On 26th August 1985 Blanchard was the first to make a flight over 200 km (straight line) from Lille to Servon

Honoured all over Europe, Blanchard became an ardent balloonist making many ascensions and demonstrations, including the second ever jump with a parachute, and he decided after his 44th flight (Lübeck, Germany) to leave for the Americas with his son Julien Joseph, where in 1793 he made the first balloon voyage in the United States from Philadelphia. In 1796, after a flight from New-York, his son dies during a tornado destroying his workshop and, ruined, J-P Blanchard decided to go back to Europe.

Continuing his flights and experiences in Europe, in February 1808 he suffers a stroke during a flight in The Hague (Netherlands) and falls from his balloons from a height of 20 meters. He dies from the consequences in Paris on the 7th of March 1809. He had made 60 ascents, a record that stood for about 50 years. 

CHARLES GREEN (1785 - 1870), UK

Charles Green was born in London, UK on January 31, 1785. He came to ballooning in an unusual way. While experimenting with a device he had built to making gas to light his house, Mr. Green discovered that the final stages of the process created almost pure hydrogen gas, which he tested in small toy balloons.

He made his first ascent on July 19, 1821 from St. James Park in the George IV, Royal Coronation Balloon which was filled with coal gas, the first time such a gas had been used in manned ballooning. Though coal gas had less lifting power than hydrogen, is was much cheaper and also readily available in every major city.

He became a professional balloonist and had made 200 ascents by 1835, including many night ascents with fireworks attached to the bottom of his car. He returned to serious aeronautics in 1836 with a thrilling flight from England to Germany in the Royal Vauxhall Balloon (later renamed the Nausau). This flight introduced the idea of flying all night as well as the invention of the trail rope to act as ballast at to facilitate landing.

By the time Mr. Green retired in 1852 he had logged more than 500 flights. He died from heart failure at the age of eighty-five on March 26, 1870.

Masashi Kakuda, Japan 

Experience as competition official

Officials in World Championships or WAG since 1987.

Officials in Continental Championships since 1990.

Officials in other CIA Event

Non Sanctioned Event

Experience as competitor

Other related information

ROBERT BROTHERS, FRANCE

Anne-Jean Robert, (aîné, the elder). 1758-1820.
Marie-Noël Robert, (cadet, the younger). 1760-1820.

The Robert brothers were skilled mechanical constructors. They helped professor Jacques Alexandre César Charles build the first usable
hydrogen balloons. Charles knew about the work of Cavendish, Black and Cavallo, and realised that hydrogen would make a suitable lifting
agent. The problem was to find a airtight and light gas container. The brothers had found a method to dissolve rubber in turpentine. This mixture
was used to varnish the silk used to construct the envelopes of the balloons (The silk was red and white but when rubberised, the white parts
changed to light yellow).

August 27, 1783 Professor Charles and the Robert brothers publicly demonstrated a 35 m3 hydrogen balloon - a rubberised silk sphere. This
was the first free flight by a gas balloon. The balloon was launched from Champ de Mars, Paris. It quickly rose to high altitude and landed in
Gonesse (15 km NE Paris) where scared villagers attacked the "monster from space".

December 1st, 1783. The younger brother, Marie-Noël Robert, accompanied professor Charles on the first human flight in a gas balloon. The
"charlière" contained 380 m3 hydrogen and was launched from "Le jardin des Tuileries" in Paris at 13.45. They landed in Nesle-La-Vallée after
a 2 hour 5 minute flight covering 36 km.

July 15th, 1784. Both brothers together with Collin-Hullin and the Duke of Chartres made a flight in an elongated balloon, "La Caroline", with an
internal ballonet. They tried to control direction with oars. No valve was fitted. The duke had to slash the ballonet to prevent rupture. The flight
lasted 45 minutes. The balloon may have reached 4,500 meters altitude. After take-off in St. Cloud they landed in Meudon.

September 19th, 1784 the brothers together with Collin-Hullin made another flight in an elongated hydrogen balloon. This time they tried to
control direction with parasols. The flight lasted 6 hours 40 minutes and was the first flight over 100 km (186 km in a straight line) from Paris to
Beuvry near Bethune.

The balloons constructed for prof. Charles had all the attributes still found today in modern gas balloons. The envelope was covered with a net from
which the car was suspended, the envelope had a valve fitted and the balloon carried ballast in the form of sand to control altitude.

Citations compiled from various sources by Hans Åkerstedt, April 2000

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