
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 10, 1990                   TAG: 9005100201
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

INTERNATIONAL TRIO ANNOUNCES ROUND-THE-WORLD BALLOON FLIGHT

An airline pilot, a British tycoon and a Soviet cosmonaut said Wednesday they'll try to be the first crew to successfully circle the world non-stop in a balloon.

In the past, the Soviet Union refused to allow a balloon in its airspace, said project leader and captain Larry Newman of Scottsdale, Ariz.

The Soviet space agency Glavkosmos not only agreed last year to permit the expedition, but offered cosmonaut Vladimir Dzhanibekov as a partner, Newman said at a news conference.

"Only three years ago, such a trip as this would have been considered unthinkable," said co-captain Richard Branson of the United Kingdom.

Newman, an America West pilot, made the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight in 1978 and holds the world record for the longest distance covered in a balloon, 5,209 miles across the Pacific in 1981.

Branson crossed the Atlantic in a hot-air balloon in 1987. Dzhanibekov, a pilot, is chief of Glavkosmos' cosmonaut training department and has been in space five times.

by CNB