Armenia set a world record in hot air ballooning as SkyBall, the founder of ballooning in Armenia, operated the world’s longest flight without landing.

The balloon took off from Russia’s Orenburg region on February 16 and landed near the city of Neftekams (Bashkortostan), covering a distance of approximately 302 miles. The flight lasted 34: hours and 41 minutes. The previous record was 32 hours and 12 minutes.

Scenes from the launching of the hot air balloon in Russia’s Orenburg region

The two experienced pilots – Sergey Bazhenov from Moscow and Nairi Barseghyan from Armenia – thus beat the previous record set by Ivan Menyaylo and Fedor Konyukhov five years ago.

Barseghyan told Armenpress that on Wednesday the balloon took off at 8 a.m. local time and landed at its destination on Thursday at 6:45 p.m..

The hot air balloon was piloted by Sergey Bazhenov and Nairi Barseghyan

The record will be documented by the World Air Sports Federation and it is remarkable that for the first time in history the name of Armenia will be written in aviation sports. 

“I should mention that such records belong to superpowers. If we look at the list we will see the U.S., Russia, Japan, and one or two European countries, now the name of Armenia will be in this list, which was our ultimate goal,” concluded Nairi Barseghyan.