The Free Life (registration N2079 [1]) was the name of the ill-fated Roziere balloon that made the fourth attempt at crossing the Atlantic Ocean. The balloon was launched from East Hampton, New York on 20 September 1970. The balloon was piloted by Malcolm Brighton, with Rodney Anderson and Pamela Brown on board.[2]
The adventure was thought up by Rodney Anderson and his wife, Pamela Brown. Pamela Brown was the actress daughter of Kentucky politician and attorney John Y. Brown, Sr. and the sister of Kentucky Fried Chicken entrepreneur and future Kentucky Governor John Y. Brown Jr. At age 28, she and her 32-year-old husband, commodities broker Rod Anderson, hoped to break records with the first manned balloon flight across the Atlantic. The couple planned to recoup the cost of the venture by writing a book about their experience.[3] When the pilot whom they had been counting on for the flight withdrew late in the game, the Andersons hired Englishman Malcolm Brighton, 32, whose ascent in the Free Life was to be his 100th - and his last.[4] Malcolm Brighton had built a number of balloons and became the main builder for the Bristol Belle, the name given to the first modern hot air balloon in Europe.[5]
The Free Life was the first use of a Roziere style balloon and was built by Mark Semich. It used a combination of helium and hot air. Below the spherical helium gas cell is a conical sleeve where air can be heated by burners in the same way as a normal hot air balloon. By varying the hot air temperature, altitude can be maintained without having to release helium or to drop ballast. The burners are principally used to compensate for the lack of solar heating at night.
Even after four years of planning and postponing, Mr Brighton still had reservations about the balloon and in an interview, in which Mr. Brighton was asked what he thought of the Free Life, he said "I think I could have done better". Even experienced balloonists, to whom Mr. Brighton had confided his plans to pilot the Free Life, advised against it.
Despite this, the balloon was launched from George Sid Miller's pasture on Fireplace Road in Springs,[6] East Hampton, New York on 20 September 1970. The weather was perfect. Families picnicked and partied. The giant yellow, white and orange balloon, seven storeys tall, was spectacular. Spirits were high, and everyone seemed to share a sense of participating in something extraordinary. 1,500 well-wishers cheered their ascent.
Unfortunately, disaster struck just some 30 hours after launch. A hot-air mechanism designed to maintain the balloon’s altitude at night failed the second day of the flight. When the balloon encountered a high-altitude cold front and a severe rainstorm, they were forced to ditch in the Atlantic that night, about 600 miles southeast of Newfoundland. On 21 September came the last message from the Free Life. "We are ditching," it said. "We request search and rescue." The balloon went down in stormy seas off Newfoundland. Three Coast Guard cutters, a Royal Canadian Air Force plane and six American Navy and Coast Guard planes scoured the area for seven days. A few items from the balloon gondola were spotted, but the rescue effort was unsuccessful.
Up to August 1978, ten subsequent attempts were made at transatlantic balloon crossings. In February 1974, while making one such attempt, Colonel Thomas Leigh Gatch, Jr., USAR also disappeared in his Light Heart, a superpressure balloon. Finally, on 17 August 1978, three Americans - Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman crossed the Atlantic by balloon, in the Double Eagle II.
In October 1972 Pamela Brown was memorialized by the opening of the Pamela Brown Auditorium, the first and largest theater in the newly-built Actor's Theatre of Louisville complex.
A book commemorating the attempt was written in 1994 by Anthony Smith, noted science and travel writer, explorer, and lighter-than-air enthusiast.[7] Entitled “The Free Life: The Spirit of Courage, Folly and Obsession”, the book was awarded the W.W. Norton & Co. thirteenth Annual Editors' Book Award. Anthony Smith was not at the launch of the balloon in 1970, but he had taught Mr. Brighton to fly, and he had flown with him more frequently than anyone else.