Bertrand Piccard

Bertrand Piccard (* March 1, 1958 in Lausanne ) is a Swiss psychiatrist, scientist and adventurer. He circled along with Brian Jones became the first man the earth in a balloon.

Family History

Bertrand comes from a famous family: His grandfather, Auguste Piccard (1884-1962), ran on August 18, 1932, a balloon up to 16'940 m altitude in the stratosphere. His father, Jacques Piccard (1922-2008), broke out in Bathyscaphen Trieste in the Mariana Trench 10,916 m below sea deep sea diving world record, built with the Auguste Piccard (PX -8), the first tourist submarine in the world, explored with the Ben Franklin ( PX -15) in 1969 the Gulf Stream, intensively for life in the sea a.

Youth

At 16, Bertrand Piccard was one of the European pioneers in the delta and flying Ultralights. He was a flight instructor for Delta flies and microlight flying and explored in all its forms: distance, elevation, acrobatics, starting from Snowpark, powered flight, hang gliders and parachute. Piccard was European champion in aerobatics, holder of the world altitude record and several " world firsts": he crossed the Alps in the first ultralight aircraft in the direction of Switzerland and Italy.

But more than records and adventure tie him up while flying the study of human behavior and the observation of the different levels of consciousness in extreme situations. The Delta flies was for him a laboratory of psychology. 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 opened a private practice in psychotherapy, where he also organizes hypnosis training courses.

Ballooning

Due to his medical career, he came back to the family tradition, the balloon ride back. He participated as a co- pilot, doctor and hypnotist at the Chrysler Challenge, the first transatlantic balloon competition, starting in the United States. Together with Wim Verstraeten he won this historic race and ends after 5 days and 5000 km in Spain.

For Bertrand Piccard this ride was a revelation. After 18 years of paragliding, carried out at the local updrafts ( thermals ), he discovered in this transatlantic balloon flight a new way to move through the air, to be led into the unknown of a constantly waving, not only locally acting wind. The dream, the world non-stop, without motor, without tax, only driven by the wind to circle began to germinate. A total of 10 teams with 21 starts trying unsuccessfully since 1981 to create this circumnavigation.

Non-stop balloon flight around the earth

Bertrand to the Swiss watchmaker Breitling from the last great adventure of the 20th century, to convince a non-stop balloon flight around the earth, and managed to win him as the main sponsor.

First attempt

After three years of preparation, the Breitling Orbiter was launched on January 12, 1997 in Château d'Oex. A kerosene loss ended this first attempt prematurely.

2nd attempt

Also, the second attempt failed. On February 8, 1998 Breitling Orbiter 2 in Burma has set up because of a ban on flights over China. He was thus longer than any airship flown by he was 9 days, 17 hours and 51 minutes remained in the air.

3rd attempt

On 1 March 1999 he started, together with the Briton Brian Jones co- pilot, the Breitling Orbiter 3 in Chateau d'Oex in Switzerland and landed after 45'755 km flight on 21 March 1999 in desert Egypt. In 19 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes he made the first circumnavigation of the globe non-stop. He has thus achieved the longest flight in both time and distance in the whole history of aviation and erected a total of seven world records.

Awards

  • Prix ​​NATURE « porteur d' espoir "
  • Olympic Medal
  • Gold Medal of the French Ministry of Youth and Sports (officer grade)
  • Award from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
  • Award from the National Geographic Society
  • Award of the Explorers Club
  • Braunschweig Research Prize 2009 ( with André Borschberg )
  • Honorary Doctor of Mathematics and Natural Sciences Faculty of the University of Fribourg
  • Doctor of Science honoris causa (2008, Université catholique de Louvain )
  • Grand Prix de l' Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques
  • He was appointed by the UN as a goodwill ambassador for the Population Fund ( UNFPA).
  • Swiss Award 2011 - Category society. With André Borschberg for Solar Impulse.
  • Champion of the Earth Award by the United Nations Environment Programme in the category Inspiration & Action

Winds of Hope Foundation

Together with Brian Jones, he founded the Winds of Hope Foundation, which supports organizations that fight against little known suffering and are hardly supported. Winds of Hope aims to inform the media about unacceptable situations in the world, and thus bring the political authorities to take emergency measures and to call both the public and the company for the financial support of certain humanitarian actions.

Primarily Winds of Hope fights against the largely unknown disease Noma, which affects children advance in age from two to six years and is mainly found in sub-Saharan belt of Africa.

Bertrand Piccard in 2005 was also a co-founder of the Association Noma Aid Switzerland, who has taken on the task of combating this childhood disease.

Current Project: Solar Impulse

The current project of Piccard is the circumnavigation of the earth with a purpose built solar-powered plane. The project is called Solar Impulse.

The vision of the project is to raise awareness of current challenges facing humanity: the transition of our economy to greater energy efficiency and renewable energy to be independent of the limited fossil resources. Achieving a world record is explicitly not the goal.

Piccard is married, father of three daughters and lives near Lausanne.

  • Traces in the sky. (French original title: Une Trace dans le Ciel ), Piper, Munich / Zurich 2004, ISBN 3-492-24253-7.
  • With the wind around the world. (French original title: Le Tour du Monde en 20 jour), with Brian Jones, from the English by Anja Hansen -Schmidt and Thomas Pfeiffer, Piper, Munich / Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-492-23329-5.
  • The Greatest Adventure: Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones
  • Bertrand Piccard told. Edition experienced and remembered, Audiobook, 2010, ISBN 978-3-9523321-2-2.
  • Solar Impulse HB -SIA by Jacques Henri Addor and Bertrand Piccard; Favre Publisher
Brian Jones (aeronaut) Balloon (aircraft) Bathyscaphe Trieste Ben Franklin (PX-15) Breitling SA Gasometer Oberhausen Efficient energy use Richard Branson Integrated Authority File
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