Mike Kendrick Quotes (9 Quotes)

The situation is that the higher you go, the more fuel is used. So usually you trade speed for fuel. We are not that concerned at the moment, but we are just driving it very hard. It is a very dangerous place and we are not taking any chances.

We needed a bit of luck.

We just got word that Virgin Airlines (which Branson owns) was awarded a commercial route into Shanghai. So the balloon must be doing some good.

We are going to look ... for the fastest, most direct route out of China, which is what the balloon wants to do anyway.

Timing is absolutely critical. We need to land it before it gets too hot. The good news is the weather is quite calm. At this point, we're treating it like a normal landing.

I'm afraid the weather has beaten us.

We're accelerating all the time and we're hoping to get to the west coast of the U.S. by Christmas Day, but it's difficult to predict.

In the end, a weather problem is what stopped us, but that is the nature of ballooning.

We were beset with all sorts of problems that were all political. But in the end it was the weather that brought us down. It's a very, very difficult thing to circumnavigate the globe. Otherwise someone else would have done it by now.