An Irish woman has broken two world records for flying hot air balloons in distance and duration-of-flight categories, one of which had remained unbroken for more than 30 years. Pauline Baker, from Trim, Co Meath, set the new records in two separate flights in Italy during the last two weeks.
On January 7th, Ms Baker took off in her balloon from Brunice in northern Italy and landed three hours and 36 minutes later. This was the longest balloon flight by a female pilot since 1975 when American Donna Wiederkehr completed a flight of two hours and 40 minutes.
Ms Baker broke the distance record on January 10th when she flew her lightweight 9kg balloon a distance of 22.74km (14 miles) - again breaking Ms Wiederkehr's record of 18kms.
