Two Eagles balloon at launch
The Two Eagles balloon crew that launched last week in Japan has now achieved one of its goals -- the flight on Thursday passed 5,260 miles, the current world record for distance in a gas balloon. Troy Bradley and Leonid Tiukhtyaev are also on track to beat the record for time aloft, just over 137 hours, if they keep flying until Friday morning. As of Thursday evening (about 8 p.m. Eastern), the team was focused on planning for a safe landing, which they expected to happen in Baja California sometime on Saturday morning.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/news/trans-pacific-balloonists-exceed-distance-record