Bertrand Piccard

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Bertrand Piccard (1999)

Bertrand Piccard (born March 1, 1958 in Lausanne ) is a Swiss psychiatrist and adventurer. Together with Brian Jones and André Borschberg, he was the first person to orbit the earth in a balloon and in a solar airplane .

Life

Family history

Bertrand comes from a respected family in research and science: his grandfather, Auguste Piccard (1884–1962), took a balloon up to 16,940 m into the stratosphere on August 18, 1932 . His father, Jacques Piccard (1922–2008), broke the deep-sea diving world record in the Bathyscaphen Trieste in the Mariana Trench 10,916 m below sea level, built the world's first tourist submarine with the Auguste Piccard (PX-8) and explored with the Ben Franklin (PX-15) left the Gulf Stream in 1969 and worked hard to promote marine life.

Piccard is married, has three daughters and lives near Lausanne.

youth

At the age of 16, Bertrand Piccard was one of the European pioneers in hang gliding and flying ultralight aircraft . He was a flight instructor for delta flying and microlight aircraft and researched flying in all its forms: distance, altitude, acrobatics, take-off from Montgolfièren , powered flight, hang-glider and parachute . Piccard was European champion in aerobatics, holder of a world record in altitude and several "world premieres": He was the first to cross the Alps in an ultralight aircraft in the direction of Switzerland - Italy .

But the study of human behavior and the observation of the different levels of consciousness in extreme situations fascinate him more than records and adventure. Delta flying became a laboratory of psychology for him . He became a doctor and later specialized in psychiatry and psychotherapy for adults, children and adolescents as well as hypnosis. After working as a senior physician in a department at the university hospital, Piccard opens his own practice for psychotherapy, where he also organizes hypnosis training courses .

Balloon rides

Due to his work as a doctor, he came back to the family tradition of ballooning. He participated as co-pilot, doctor and hypnotist in the Chrysler Challenge , the first transatlantic balloon competition to start in the USA . Together with Wim Verstraeten he won this historic race and ended up in Spain after 5 days and 5000 km .

For Bertrand Piccard this trip was a revelation. After 18 years of gliding, working with local updrafts ( thermals ), he discovered a new way of moving through the air on this transatlantic balloon flight, being guided into the unknown by a constantly blowing, not only local wind. The dream of circling the world without stopping, without a motor, without a steering wheel, just driven by the wind, began to germinate. A total of 10 teams with 21 starts have tried unsuccessfully to make this circuit since 1981.

Non-stop balloon flight around the earth

Bertrand succeeded in convincing the Swiss watchmaker Breitling of the last great adventure of the 20th century , a non-stop balloon ride around the world, and was able to win him over as the main sponsor. All 3 attempts were made with Rozière- type balloons , a combination of hot air and gas balloons, and aimed at exploiting the high wind speed of the jet stream in the high atmosphere.

1st attempt

After three years of preparation, the Breitling Orbiter launched on January 12, 1997 in Château-d'Oex . A loss of kerosene ended this first attempt prematurely. The capsule used is now in Château d'Œx.

Second attempt

Breitling Orbiter 2 gondola, exhibited in the Oberhausen gasometer

The second attempt also failed. On February 8, 1998, Breitling Orbiter 2 had to touch down in Burma because of a ban on overflights in China . He had traveled longer than any airship, staying in the air for 9 days, 17 hours and 51 minutes.

3. Trial and Success

Breitling Orbiter 3, exhibited in the Oberhausen Gasometer

On March 1, 1999, he started, together with the Briton Brian Jones as co-pilot, with the Breitling Orbiter 3 in Château-d'Œx in Switzerland and landed on March 21, 1999 in the desert in Egypt after a journey of 45,755 kilometers . In 19 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes he made the first circumnavigation of the world in a balloon without a stopover. He has thus realized the longest flight in both duration and distance in the entire history of aviation and set a total of seven world records.

Faster orbits around the world, also with Rozièren, were first achieved in 2002 by Steve Fossett (solo) in about 14 days and in 2016 by Fyodor Konjuchow (solo) in 11.5 days.

Around the world with Solar Impulse

The prototype Solar Impulse HB-SIA during the first flight attempts on December 3, 2009 at the Dübendorf military airfield

From 2015 to 2016, Piccard circumnavigated the world with a specially built solar airplane , with the support of André Borschberg . The project was called Solar Impulse . This aircraft started on March 9, 2015 for a circumnavigation of the world, which was successfully completed on July 26, 2016 by overcoming more than a dozen stages, flown by one of two pilots at a time.

The vision of the project is to raise awareness of the current challenges facing mankind: the conversion of the economy to more energy efficiency and renewable energies in order to become independent of the limited fossil resources . Achieving a world record is expressly not the goal.

Winds of Hope Foundation

Together with Brian Jones , he founded the Winds of Hope Foundation , which supports aid organizations that fight against little-known ailments and receive little support. Winds of Hope wants to inform the media about unacceptable situations in the world and thus get the political authorities to take emergency measures and call on both the public and the companies to provide financial support for certain humanitarian actions.

First and foremost, Winds of Hope fights against the largely unknown disease noma , which affects children between the ages of two and six and occurs mainly in the sub-Saharan belt of Africa.

In 2005, Bertrand Piccard was also a co-founder of the Noma-Hilfe-Schweiz association, which has set itself the task of combating this childhood disease.

Awards

Publications

literature

DVDs

  • "The Balloon Marathon" - A film directed by Garfield Kennedy
  • "Bertrand Piccard - Life as a balloon ride" - A film by Otto C. Honegger

Web links

Commons : Bertrand Piccard  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gerd Kulhavy: Profile Dr. Bertrand Piccard. Speakers Excellence Deutschland Holding GmbH, 2016, archived from the original on December 29, 2016 ; accessed on January 14, 2017 .
  2. ↑ World record holder, researcher and father. In: SonntagsZeitung of October 2, 2011, p. 23
  3. ↑ Landing in Abu Dhabi: “Solar Impulse 2” successfully circumnavigates the world. In: Spiegel Online . July 26, 2016, accessed September 30, 2018 .
  4. ^ Bertrand Piccard: Bertrand Piccard's solar-powered adventure. (Flash video, 17:24 minutes) In: TED conference . July 2009, accessed January 24, 2010 .
  5. ↑ Dies academicus 2009. University of Freiburg , November 14, 2011, accessed on January 16, 2012 .
  6. ↑ Champions of the Earth - 2012 Laureates. United Nations Environment Program , archived from the original on November 12, 2012 ; accessed on September 30, 2018 (English). Champions of the Earth - 2012 Laureate: Inspiration & Action. United Nations Environment Program , archived from the original on August 18, 2013 ; accessed on September 30, 2018 (English). Bertrand Piccard receives the United Nations Champion of the Earth Award. Solar Impulse Foundation, June 5, 2012, archived from the original on April 2, 2015 ; accessed on September 30, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Piccard, Bertrand
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss psychiatrist and adventurer
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Lausanne