Starting from the Spitzbergen archipelago, where the expedition base camp will be set up, Jean-Louis Etienne will undertake a novel 3,500-kilometre flight across to Alaska via the North Pole.
Once he receives the green light from his meteorological advisor, he will fly off over the pack ice. He will have to cover some 1,300 kilometres “as the crow flies” to reach the Pole and then another 2,200 kilometres to reach the cost of Alaska. But a balloon must go where the winds take it, and Jean-Louis Etienne’s actual track will look more like a complicated sewing stitch than a straight line drawn on a map. The only way the explorer will have some control over the balloon’s direction is to alter its altitude to harness more favourable winds that will take him closer to where he wants to go.
A simulation of possible tracks across the polar region (Google maps) :
Once he receives the green light from his meteorological advisor, he will fly off over the pack ice. He will have to cover some 1,300 kilometres “as the crow flies” to reach the Pole and then another 2,200 kilometres to reach the cost of Alaska. But a balloon must go where the winds take it, and Jean-Louis Etienne’s actual track will look more like a complicated sewing stitch than a straight line drawn on a map. The only way the explorer will have some control over the balloon’s direction is to alter its altitude to harness more favourable winds that will take him closer to where he wants to go.
A simulation of possible tracks across the polar region (Google maps) :
