Real Trans-oceanic Lighter-than-air Flights
The first human-carrying lighter-than-air craft of any type to cross the Atlantic was the British dirigible R-34, a direct copy of the German L-33 which crashed in Britain during World War I, in 1919. The 3559.5 mile flight from Britain to New York City took 108 hours 12 minutes.
The first human-carrying unpowered balloon to actually cross the Atlantic Ocean was Double Eagle II from August 11 to 17, 1978. The Pacific was crossed in three days by unmanned Japanese "fire balloons" in 1944, exactly 100 years after Poe's story.
Read more about this topic: The Balloon-Hoax
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