And so, just the initial lift off from Sugarloaf to cross the Atlantic, as we were pushing into the jet stream, this enormous balloon the top of the balloon ended up going at a couple of hundred miles an hour, the capsule that we were in at the bottom was going at maybe two miles an hour, and it just took off.

But the ends of all those balloon trips were, you know something seemed to go wrong every time, and on that particular occasion, the more experienced balloonist who was with me jumped, and left me holding on for dear life.

RB No, he told me jump, but once his weight had gone, the balloon just shot up to 12,000 feet and I ...

RB Well, I think the balloon adventures were each one was, each one, actually, I think we came close.

In some models, such as the Skyship 600, differential ballonet inflation can provide a measure of pitch trim control.

We slowed down. And we went through moments of fears because we had no idea how the little amount of gas we had in the balloon could allow us to travel 45,000 kilometers.

In recent times many aviation endurance records have been achieved by hybrid balloon designs such as the Rozière Balloon which combine the altitude control of hot air balloons with the permanent buoyancy of lifting gases.

With the exception of glider pilots, balloon pilots and sport pilots, civilian pilots in the United States and most other nations must obtain a flight physical from a civilian physician known as an Aviation Medical Examiner (AME).

RB Yeah. No, I put on my oxygen mask and stood on top of the balloon, with my parachute, looking at the swirling clouds below, trying to pluck up my courage to jump into the North Sea, which and it was a very, very, very lonely few moments.

MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS Imagine that the arguments triggered by the Hindenberg disaster were about the fire extinguishers and parachutes that airships should carry, rather than about the design flaws that might cause them to ignite.

Unfortunately, just across the road from it or quite close by is the Column of Marcus Aurelius, and the diameter of the dirigible makes an impression, as you can see, as she starts trying to read the story that spirals around the Column of Marcus Aurelius gets a little too close, nudges it.

Now it's really hard to grasp the scale of these places, because as the glaciers one of the things is that places like Alaska and Greenland are huge, they're not normal landscapes but as the glaciers are retreating, they're also deflating, like air is being let out of a balloon.