Hot air balloon pioneer dies at 87 Yost launched ’76 flight from Maine

TAOS, N.M. – Hot air ballooning pioneer Paul “Ed” Yost has died at the age of 87.

Yost died Sunday at his home near Taos, N.M.

No memorial service is planned.

His hot air balloon accomplishments were known worldwide, including the world’s first attempted crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in the “Silver Fox” that was launched from Baldwin Head, Milbridge, Maine, on Oct. 5, 1976.

As reported in the Bangor Daily News at the time, the flight lasted 107 hours when the balloon was forced down into the Atlantic Ocean east of the Azores. While Yost didn’t make it across the Atlantic, he did set a record for the longest flight at the time.

According to the National Balloon Museum in Indianola, Iowa, Yost piloted the first flight of a balloon using a new envelope and propane burner system he developed, making a 25-minute, three-mile flight from Bruning, Neb., in October 1960. For the feat, he’s known as the father of modern hot air ballooning.

His involvement in hot air balloons dated from years before, however. Yost, born in Bristow, Iowa, in 1919, joined the High Altitude Research Division of General Mills in Minneapolis, in 1949 and worked on many balloon projects.

He and three others from General Mills founded Raven Industries in 1956. The modern hot air balloon evolved from a contract Raven received from the Office of Naval Research to create a reusable craft that could carry one man and a load to 10,000 feet and have enough fuel to stay aloft for three hours, the Indianola museum said.

By the early 1960s, Raven Industries was making hot air balloons for sale to the public. By the mid-1960s, it was one of three selling hot air balloons, the museum said.

Yost held 21 patents on balloons and lighter-than-air mechanisms.

In April 1963, he and Don Piccard made the first hot air balloon flight across the English channel, flying from Rye in England to Gravelines Nord, France, in three hours, 17 minutes.

In October 1976, Yost attempted to become the first solo balloon pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean. He took off from Maine and stayed airborne for four days, but was forced down by constant circling wind 530 miles from Portugal.

The first successful balloon flight of the Atlantic came two years later, when three Albuquerque, N.M., men, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman, landed in France after a flight of 137 hours in a gas balloon. Col. Joe Kittenger made the first successful solo crossing in 1983.

Yost helped found the Balloon Federation of America and helped organize the first U.S. National Ballooning Championship at Indianola.

He received numerous awards for his contributions to aviation, including the 1999 Godfrey L. Cabot Award the Aero Club of New England, which honors those who have made unique, significant and unparalleled contributions to advance aviation or space flight.

Yost was inducted into the U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame in Indianola in 2004 and was awarded the Lipton Trophy by the British Balloon and Airship Club in 2006.

He is survived by two sons, Greg Yost of Houston, Texas, and Dale Yost of Singapore, and a granddaughter.

The Bangor Daily News contributed to this report.