page_title: Tim Cole (balloonist)
section_title: Spirit of Freedom Capsule
hierarchical_section_title: Tim Cole (balloonist) / Personal life / Spirit of Freedom Capsule
caption_attribution_description: English: Steve Fossett's Bud Light Spirit of Freedom Balloon Capsule (A20030128000) on display in the "Pioneers of Flight" exhibit (Gallery 208), Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, D.C., April 19, 2006. Photo by Eric Long. [SI-2006-5549]
context_page_description: Tim Cole is the balloonist who designed and built the Spirit of Freedom balloon capsule. This was the first aircraft of any type to carry a solo pilot around the world. In 2002 pilot Steve Fossett flew the Spirit of Freedom on the first successful nonstop solo circumnavigation flight.
context_section_description: Designed and build by Tim Cole out of kevlar and carbon with a clear bubble hatch.  His local Greeley partners helped with materials and building including: Agland, Purdy-Minch Construction and Maxanns.    About the size of a closet, the Spirit-of-Freedom capsule has a bench and a sleeping bag.  Fossett averaged 4 hours of sleep per day in 45 minute naps.  He ate military rations called MREs which were heated with water activated chemical heat packs.   Fossett would have to regularly climb out into the sub-zero temperatures to change fuel tanks.   Besides the Comstock autopilot, the gondola equipment included GPS, Inmarsat, and satellite phone backup for communications with Mission Control at Washington University in St. Louis.  Fossett used radios for communications with air traffic control and other aircraft.  An Emergency Position Indicating Rescue Beacon (EPIRB) was on board to aid search and rescue.  The unpressurized gondola used lithium batteries to power the electronic equipment and a custom heater regulating the aircraft internal temperature between 4 and 21 C (38-72 F).
  The Spirit of Freedom Capsule was displayed for some time under the Spirit of St. Louis in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC.  Cole's great-great-great-great-grandfather, William Congreve, is in the same museum for designing a British military rocket.
caption: First Solo Around The World Balloon Flight
  Spirit-of-Freedom-Ballon gondola
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