Book Bertrand Piccard

Bertrand Piccard is a Swiss explorer, psychiatrist and environmentalist who has twice made aviation history. In March 1999 he and Brian Jones lifted off from Château d'Oex in Switzerland aboard the balloon Breitling Orbiter 3 and became the first to fly a balloon around the world without stopping, riding the jet streams with help from a team of meteorologists and touching down in Egypt after 19 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes aloft. He then launched Solar Impulse, a solar-powered aircraft project developed with the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and as its initiator, chairman and one of its two pilots alongside André Borschberg, he completed the first successful flight around the globe powered only by the sun. A pioneer of hang gliding and microlight flying in Europe in the 1970s, he won the European hang-glider aerobatics title in 1985. He founded and chairs the Solar Impulse Foundation, and in 2012 the UN Environment Programme named him a Champion of the Earth. His honors also include the Hubbard Medal, the Harmon Trophy, the FAI Gold Air Medal, the Silver Olympic Order and the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honour.