SOVIET SUCCESS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 232, 2 October 1933, Page 7

SOVIET SUCCESS.

INTO STRATOSPHERE.

Balloonists Reach a Height of

Over 11 Miles.

"VICTORY FOR PROLETARIAT."

(United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyrijht) (Received 9.30 a.m.) MOSCOW, October 1. The stratosphere balloon U.S.S.R., piloted by George Propokiev and two companions, reached a height of 60,798 ft yesterday, thus beating Professor Piccard's record of 55,777 ft, established in August, 1032. The balloon is 117 ft in diameter and is filled with 3000 cubic metres of gas, which was expected to expand eightfold during the ascent. After at first dropping at the rate of only a mile an hour, the latter stages of the descent were made with extraordinary rapidity. Propokiev, whose companions were Ernest Birnbaum, an engineer, and C. D. Goudonov, a scientist, interviewed after landing, said they were all tired but in excellent physical condition. He stated that the ascent exceeded 19,000 metres, but the precise altitude would be known when the Government commission examines the sealed barograph. When they landed, Propokiev was harangued by tlio enthusiastic crowd, who described the flight as a victory for the Communist party and the proletariat. The balloon look off in perfect weather at dawn and shot upwards at a rate of Oft a second. The occupants immediately established wireless communication with the earth, and in 42 minutes claimed to have risen over 10 miles, adding: "We aro feeling fine." In two hours 37 minutes the baljoonists passed Professor Piccard's record and were still rising. The oxygen apparatus worked well. The temperature within the aluminium gondola (painted silver grey) was 71 degrees. The balloon was visible from Moscow. Finally it landed at the Kolomensky works, 70 miles from Moscow, after 0 hours 17 minutes in the air. It is claimed that the instruments recorded an altitude of 19,000 metres, approximately 11 7-8 miles.

Professor Piccard and his assistant, M. Max Cozyne, succeeded in an attempt to ascend in a globe attached to a balloon to a height of over 10 miles on August 18, 1932. They ascended from Zurich, and after a flight of 10 hours, in which they ascended 05,777 feet, nearly twice the height of Mount Everest, and eclipsed their own altitude record by half a mile, they descended on the shore of Lake Garda, near Desenzano.