Per Lindstrand

Lindstrand later gained a master's degree in aeronautical engineering and worked for Saab Aircraft in Sweden and Lockheed in the United States.

Lindstrand Balloons, in partnership with Daimler Chrysler Aerospace of Germany, was awarded a design contract by the European Space Agency to develop a high altitude long endurance airship for possible use in the telecommunications market.

From early in his business career, Lindstrand's main interest and ambition lay in pushing the boundaries of lighter-than-air technology and he subsequently captured every absolute world record for hot air balloon flight.

Ascending from Plano, Texas, US on 6 June 1988, Lindstrand set a new world altitude record for hot-air balloons, reaching 19,811 meters (64,997 feet).

[3][4] In January 1991, in the Virgin Pacific Flyer (a hot air balloon measuring 74,000 m³ (2,600,300 ft³), designed and built by Thunder & Colt), Lindstrand and Branson completed the longest flight in lighter-than-air history when they flew 6761 miles from Japan to Northern Canada.

In February 2006, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Institute of British Architects for "his highly innovative work in the field of inflatables and their application to habitable structures".