1984 News Abstracts
Miami Herald, Miami, FL, Sun Sept 23, 1984:
p. 2A, c. 1 -

BALLOONIST CELEBRATES EXPLOIT WITH QUIPS, BLOWOUT AT MAXIM'S

By Brendan Murphy

PARIS - Telegrams have followed trans-Atlantic balloonist Joe
Kittinger around Europe ever since his crash-landing Tuesday in Italy,
but even the one sent by President Reagan paled next to the message
sent early Saturday morning by Maxim's restaurant.

     "Congratulations on your recent flight," Maxim's staff wired.
"Don't come back."

     On Friday evening, Kittinger and 18 friends had celebrated the
first solo balloon voyage across the Atlantic with a gourmet dinner at
Maxim's, finishing with a rousing chorus of God Bless America and a
parade out the door led by trumpet-playing Kittinger publicist Mark
Kirkham. "The clientele consisted mainly of Japanese businessmen, and
I don't think they expected to see such a parade," Kittinger said the
next morning as he chuckled with journalists over the acerbic and
quite Gallic telegram in a plush 18th Century salon of the U.S.
ambassador's residence.

     The Maxim's dinner was the payoff on a bet made with balloon
assistant Bob Snow. If Kittinger landed in the water, he bought
dinner. Otherwise Snow paid.

     Kittinger says he never doubted the outcome -- even if he
occasionally considered the consequences of a mid-ocean ditch.

        "The winds that were pushing me at 50 or 60 miles per hour
were also very high on the surface. There were constant whitecaps
frothing on the ocean, and just the thought of landing in that hostile
environment certainly motivated one not to do it." said Kittinger, who
left Maine Sept. 14 and traveled over 3,500 miles during his four-day
trip.

     As it was, his landing in northern Italy was rough. He didn't
walk away from it.

     "When I landed I was elated, even though I knew my foot was
broken," said Kittinger, 56, whose sunburned face nearly matched his
bright red hair.

     "The first thing I said was, 'Where am I?' They said, 'You're in
Italy.' So I said, 'Well, good, bring me a glass of chianti.' "

     For four days and four nights, Kittinger said, he slept only
about one hour, taking cat naps after setting an alarm. Kittinger wore
an oxygen mask throughout the trip along with survival clothes to ward
off the minus-20 centigrade chill. He ate only snacks: crackers, beef
jerky, M&Ms, frozen lasagne and spaghetti. He also munched peanuts.

     "A friend of mine gave me four pounds of peanuts, and I ate those
peanuts all the way across the Atlantic and threw the shells into the
ocean so I could find my way back," he joked.

     Kittinger takes a pragmatic view of his achievement.

     "I'm not a poetic person," he said. "I'm a factual person who was
working on flying a balloon from the United States of America to
Europe." About the only break in this determined routine came at the
halfway mark. "About three o'clock in the morning I was laying down --
not sleeping, just laying down -- and suddenly I heard some engines,"
Kittinger said. "I was startled. It was a Canadian military aircraft
that had found me on its radar. It flew back and gave me my position,
exactly where I was."

     This information was welcome but not necessary, since Kittinger's$250,000 balloon, 110 feet high with a 15-foot-long fiberglass
gondola, had full instrumentation. The craft was at the mercy of the
wind, of course, but its pilot says his course led swiftly and
directly for Europe.

Photo Caption: Joe Kittinger


The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL, ?? 1984:
p. 1, c.  -

KITTINGER'S
FEAT LIFTS HIM
OVER CLOUD 9

By M.C.Poertner
-----------------------
of the Sentinel Staff
-----------------------

        After gliding among the clouds nearly 84 hours and 3,535
miles, Orlando aviator Joe Kittinger ended the first solo
trans-Atlantic balloon flight Tuesday with a crash-landing near
Savona, Italy.

        "I flew as far as I could fly," he said.

        Fighting wind and rain, Kittinger rammed the 10-story Rosie
O'Grady's  Balloon of Peace into treetops at 2:08 p.m. (8:08 a.m.
EDT) and was thrown from the gondola.

        Still dressed in cold-weather clothing from the chilly nights
he spent over the Atlantic - three shirts, long underwear, overalls and
a heavy coat, - Kittinger fell about 10 feet and broke a bone in his
right foot. He had broken the same bone  while parachuting in the Air
Force.

       "The happiness of accomplishing the task far outweighs the
discomfort," Kittinger, 56, said in a telephone interview from his
hotel in Nice, France.

       Four press helicopters circled Kittinger as he landed.  His
frequent companion, Sherry Reed, 25, of Orlando, was in one of the
copters and was with reporters as they rushed to the landing site.

        "The first thing he said to me was, 'Well, baby, we did
it,' " she said.

        She handed him a bottle of champagne, which he poured on
his head before taking a swig.  Then he popped another cork and they
toasted the flight.

        One of the helicopters, carrying a National Geographic
photographer, took Kittinger to a hospital in Nice.

        Reed said she saw the landing and  saw Kittinger toss ballast
overboard but didn't see him fall from the gondola.

        "It was incredible," she said. "I didn't cry at the launch. I saved
it for the landing."

        Kittinger said he was happy but exhausted after the flight.
which began Friday night in a field south of Caribou, Maine.

        "I'm tired. I haven't slept in five days."  Although he was
able to nap occasionally, Kittinger said he stayed too busy to sleep
as much as he would have liked. He had conditioned himself to sleep 10
minutes of every hour.

        "I took along some Willie Nelson and country-Western tapes
and didn't listen to a single one because I was so doggoned busy."

        The French greeted him enthusiastically, said Bob Snow, the
Orlando restaurateur who helped sponsor the flight and who is with
Kittinger in Nice.

        "It's just going wild here," Snow said in a telephone
interview. "Joe is just wearing out his arms signing autographs."

        The hallways of the hospital where Kittinger's bone was set
were so crowded with reporters and sightseers that "it was hard
getting in and out," Snow said. The hospital had no crutches, Snow
said, so Kittinger was "hobbling about in a wheelchair."

        Kittinger said he had no significant problems during the
flight.  His ground crew in Bedford, Mass., said at one point on
Sunday that he should consider landing in Newfoundland, the point
of no return.  They said there was a possibility he could be blown
north and die in freezing waters. Two of the five balloonists who
tried solo trans-Atlantic crossings earlier were killed.

        Kittinger said he never seriously considered stopping.

        "I have a great deal of confidence in Bob Rice," the flight
meteorologist, Kittinger said. "He said I had the perfect system and I
was bound and determined to fly."

        "You just have to go for it, go for it. That's the American
way," Kittinger told reporters at the hospital. "I'm proud. I'm proud
of the team. It's a team effort, really."

        Early Tuesday, Kittinger's crew hoped he would land in the
Mediterranean Sea near Marseilles, France. They thought it would
be safer than landing on the rugged coast.

        Again, he kept flying.

        "I hadn't gone as far as I could go," Kittinger said.

        He said he decided to end the flight Tuesday afternoon because a
line of thundershowers; lightning and wind was ahead.  He also had
nearly run out of ballast to throw overboard to lighten the balloon
and keep it aloft.

        Kittinger's flight is the second longest in the history of
balloons.  Only the Double Eagle V, which flew a four-man crew from
Japan to California in 1981, went farther:  about 5,200 miles.

        Jim Mitchell, a spokesman for Kittinger in Bedford, said it
was wiser to end the flight on the shores of the Mediterranean rather
than risk flying across Italy and into some of the communist
countries beyond, such as Hungary, Yugoslavia or Russia.

        Meteorologist Jim Serna said the landing near Savona was
difficult because of clouds beneath Kittinger.  Clouds reflect the
sun's warmth upward and heat the balloon's helium, so the pilot
must release more helium than is usual for a descent.

        Once into the clouds, however, the helium cools and the balloon
falls faster than usual during the landing, Serna said.  Controlling
the landing becomes a difficult task that only an experienced
balloonist can handle.

        Last week, a few days before takeoff, Kittinger said he might
tackle the Pacific next or try an around-the-world flight.

        He repeated that Tuesday, and said he also is considering an
offer to attempt a world speed record in a ground vehicle.

        This flight set at least two ballooning records. It eclipsed
the previous solo distance of 2,475 miles set by Ed Yost in a 1976
trans-Atlantic attempt, and surpassed the longest trans-Atlantic
balloon flight of 3,107 miles set by the Double Eagle II and its
three-man crew in 1978.

        Yost designed and built Kittinger's Balloon of Peace. It is made
of a tough nylon and a fiberglass gondola that doubles as a boat for
landing in water. The silver and black balloon weighs 820 pounds and
holds 101,000 cubic feet of helium. It stands 83 feet tall and is 55
feet in diameter.

        During the flight, Kittinger reached a high speed of 80 mph,
doubling the average speed of the Double Eagle II.

        Although he thought he would have to fly at altitudes of up to
20,000 feet to get the strongest winds, Kittinger's altitude
generally was 10,000 to 11,000 feet.  Clouds that prevented his helium
from warming kept him at that level, and the winds at the lower
altitude were unusually forceful anyway.

        His highest altitude was 16,000 feet, and that was just before
landing, when the balloon was at its lightest.

        Snow said that today he is taking Kittinger to dine at
Maxim's,  a glamorous and expensive restaurant in Paris, "We made a
bet," Snow said.  "If he made it across and landed in dirt I owed him
a dinner at Maxim's. If he landed in the water he would owe me a
dinner."

        Also meeting Kittinger in Europe were Snow's wife, Linda;
George Riviere, a longtime Kittinger colleague who, like Kittinger,
is a retired Air Force colonel and pilot; and Marc Kirkham, the
former owner of Harrigan's in Winter Park and now a San Francisco
resident.

        The primary sponsor of the flight, French-Canadian Gaetan
Croteau, is expected to catch up, with the group in Paris.  Snow
said.

        Kittinger's balloon is named for Rosie O'Grady's, the most
famous part of Snow's Church Street Station entertainment complex in
downtown Orlando.  Snow owns and Kittinger manages the Rosie O'Grady
Flying Circus, a squadron of biplanes and balloons used to advertise
the attraction.

        Reed said she and Kittinger will celebrate a while before
returning to the United States.  He already has agreements to appear on
all three network morning news shows and is considering a request
to appear on the David Letterman show.

        A Church Street Station representative, Cathy Kerns, said
the attraction plans a "major airport welcome as well as a parade
through Orlando, culminating with a major celebration at Church Street
Station."

        Details will be released today or Thursday, Kerns said.

        Kittinger's 80-year-old father, Joe Kittinger Sr. of Ormond
Beach, said his son's odyssey across the Atlantic had his telephone
ringing non-stop Tuesday.

        "I've had a terrible day," he groused. "Every television station,
every radio, NBC, ABC, CBS, even USA Today.  I've been getting
calls from all over the country from friends of his I didn't even
know."

        But "this is my responsibility to cooperate," he said.

        He said he spoke with his son by phone.

        "He said he's doing fine, he accomplished what he wanted to
do," Kittinger Sr. said. "I told him how proud I was ...."

        Reporter John Wark contributed to this story.



The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL, ?? 1984:
p. ?, c.  -

'A TOUGH OLD BIRD' LIVES OUT HIS FANTASIES

By John Wark
-------------
of the Sentinel Staff
=====================

        Col. Joseph W. Kittinger, retired from the U.S Air Force
has jousted with the enemy high over Vietnam in high-tech jet
fighters -- and lost.

        He has endured captivity in rat-infested communist POW camps.
He has parachuted from a record 19 miles help scientists learn whether
astronauts could eject at that altitude and live. He has set ballooning
distance records.

        And now the Orlando native has put another big notch in the
record books.

        Kittinger, who is 56 and has three grandchildren, has sailed a
balloon alone across the Atlantic.

        Friends would say red-haired, ruddy checked Kittinger has
"the right stuff," a phrase popularized by Tom Wolfe in a book about
the Air Force test pilots - who became astronauts and heroes.

        One friend, who flies hot-air balloons and biplanes , for the
Church Street Station entertainment complex in Orlando, says Kittinger
is "straightforward and strong-willed . . . but willing to listen."

        Kittinger does not talk about himself or his accomplishments
much, although he did write a book titled  The LONG, LONELY LEAP 
about his world record parachute jump in 1960 from 102,000 feet
during an Air Force test.  He set a free-fall record of 4 1/2 minutes.
That record still stands.

        Mark Kittinger, the balloonist's 28 year-old son, says, "Dad's a
tough old bird."

        "He won't put up with you if you aren't straight with
him," said Mark, a carpenter who lives in Altamonte Springs.
"You can't be two-faced with him."

        Kittinger has another son, Joe, who is 31 and lives in Chapel Hill,
N.C., with his wife and three children.  He is a doctor finishing
his residency there.

        Kittinger's parents live in Ormond Beach.  His father, 80, and an
uncle owned a typewriter sales and repair business in Orlando for
many years.  The uncle, Jack Kittinger, still is in the business.

        Married and divorced twice, Kittinger now has a home in Altamonte
Springs.

        Since mid-1983, Kittinger has managed the flying business for
his friend and fellow ballooning enthusiast Bob Snow, owner of
Church Street Station.

        A workday at his "office" - a huge hangar at Orlando Executive
Airport - consists of taking paying guests on balloon rides,
skywriting, and towing airplane banners

        Before joining Snow full time, Kittinger was an engineering
representative for Orlando defense contractor Martin Marietta.

        Ballooning has never been far from his thoughts.

        "A lot of the POWs would build houses in their dreams or go
through mathematical problems,"  Kittinger told an interviewer earlier
this year. "My fantasies were flying balloons and racing balloons."

        He has been driven to achieve ever since his return from a
Vietnamese camp for prisoners of war, where he was held for 11 months
in 1972 and '73.

        "I can't help but feel having your freedom taken away that
long, that he made some promise to himself that if he ever got out
of that mess he wouldn't let anything get in the way anymore," Mark
said.

        He set goals for himself and he won't let anything get in his
way."

Sources:

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