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Prominent Russian adventurer seeks to break two air balloon flight records in 2017

Russia’s world-renowned adventurer, Fyodor Konyukhov, plans to break two records in 2017: the air balloon flight duration record and the hot air balloon flight altitude record

Fyodor Konyukhov Igor Podgorny/TASS

Fyodor Konyukhov

© Igor Podgorny/TASS

MOSCOW, December 12. /TASS/. Russia’s world-renowned adventurer, Fyodor Konyukhov, plans to break two records in 2017: the air balloon flight duration record and the hot air balloon flight altitude record, the adventurer said in an interview with TASS.

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"In January, we want to set a new air balloon flight duration record. We will fly a balloon from Rybinsk (a town in the Moscow region) around January 15… At the end of the summer, I plan to set a new flight altitude record by flying a balloon 25 kilometers high into the stratosphere," Konyukhov said.

The adventurer’s son Oskar Konyukhov elaborated that his father planned to set the altitude record by flying a hot air balloon in the Krasnoyarsk region or in Yakutia.

The current air balloon flight duration record is 50 hours 38 minutes, it was set by Michio Kanda of Japan on February 1, 1997, who took off from Canada and landed in the US. Fyodor Konyukov will have to continue flying for more than 51 hours in order to beat the record.

The current hot air balloon flight altitude record was set by India’s Vijaypat Singhania on November 26, 2005, who flew his balloon at an altitude above 21,000 meters.

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