Cabin floor sample, from hot-air balloon ‘Daffodil II’ cabin: 1974 world altitude record holder

Cabin floor ‘F-Board’ composite, with aluminium honeycomb core and woven roving fibre-glass sheet on both sides; an affixed paper label reads: “Part Hot Air Balloon cabin floor. 1974-593 (From Julian Nott)”, by Ciba-Geigy, Basel, Switzerland, 1970-1973. From high altitude, pressurized hot-air balloon ‘Daffodil II’ cabin: with the overall design specification by Julian Nott, England; cabin shell structure designed by Roger Munk at Aerospace Developments, London, England, and Tony Offredi, England; and constructed by Maidboats Limited, Thames Ditton, Surrey, England, 1973. On 25th February 1974, Julian Nott and Felix Pole used ‘Daffodil II’, to break the world hot-air balloon altitude record. They reached a height of 13,961 metres near Lake Bhopal, central India.