Up, up and away as adventurer crosses Channel by balloon(s)

12 April 2012

More than two centuries after a Frenchman and an Englishman first crossed the Channel under one balloon, an American today safely floated over "The Ditch" suspended from dozens.

Looking like a balloon vendor suffering an embarrassing workplace accident, Jonathan Trappe serenely drifted across the 22 miles separating England from the Continent in almost perfect weather conditions.

The 36-year-old landed near Dunkirk in France just after 9am local time after a three-hour crossing that started at dawn at the Kent Gliding Club near Ashford.

A team of helpers had spent most of the night filling the balloons with helium before a launch reminiscent of the Pixar film Up, in which grumpy pensioner Carl Fredericksen attached hundreds of coloured balloons to his house and flew off to South America.

Mr Trappe travelled in a tiny basket and lowered himself into a French field close to the Belgian border, after cruising at about 7000 ft, by cutting away some of his colourful balloons.

Earlier he had described the Channel, first crossed in the air in 1785 by Dr John Jeffries and Jean-Pierre Blanchard, as "a siren's song". He said: "The Channel is such an iconic challenge and has called to aviators to generations. The English Channel, the white cliffs of Dover — I'm American and it even calls to me."

Asked why he wanted to take on the challenge, he said: "Didn't you have this dream — grabbing on to a bunch of toy balloons and floating off? I think it's something shared across cultures and across borders."

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