Early Life
Lindstrand's aeronautical career began in the Swedish Air Force where he was an Engineering Officer. His first balloon flight in the early 1970s was the result of a bet. He built a makeshift balloon and successfully flew it across the runway while in the Swedish Air Force to claim victory. (When he flew more conventional military aircraft, he chose to use call sign, Polar Per.)
Lindstrand later gained a masters degree in aeronautical engineering and worked for Saab Aircraft in Sweden and Lockheed in the United States. He saw his second hot air balloon in 1975 when a neighbour in Sweden purchased it from a British company. When Lindstrand learned that this new balloon was supposed to be state-of-the-art, he decided that he could do better.
Read more about this topic: Per Lindstrand
Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)