In a week when Bertrand Piccard and his co-pilot André Borschberg are just about to start the tricky Pacific leg of this amazing round the world trip in their solar powered aircraft, Solar Impulse, clearly there is still a place for ground breaking trips that push a boundary of human achievement. Magnificent men and women in flying machines will never go away. This advanced composite aircraft has 17,248 photovoltaic cells covering the top of its massive 72 metre wingspan. A Boeing 747-400 only has a wingspan of 64 metres so Solar Impulse is a true masterpiece of engineering. Want to look in awe?www.solarimpulse.com/

Jog back 55 years and Bertrand’s father, Jacques Piccard completed a pioneering dive 10,900 metres down to touch the bottom of Challenger Deep within the Marianas Trench in the Pacific. It took Jacques and his partner U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh five hours to dive to the bottom in this “bathyscaphe” called Trieste. This was a pioneering free diving vessel rather than a tethered sphere that is just lowered into the sea from a crane. The Plexiglas window had cracked by the time they reached the bottom, no doubt causing some apprehension. The vessel simply used ballast to dive then they jettisoned nine tonnes of steel in order to rise back to the surface again. It was probably pretty basic, but pioneering in its time. No composites, no 3D modeling and no computers. That was the way it was.

And time pieces? Recently, I saw a strange looking Rolex watch in a display case at an exhibition and discovered that this massively reinforced timepiece was originally attached to the outside of the Trieste to pressure test the device and probably generate a bit of publicity as well. The case of this special Rolex is machined from a great lump of metal and the glass is deeply domed to withstand the pressure. And being a Rolex, it is still able to retain its classic character and probably quite trendy if you wore it now. Look on www.rolex.com/world-of-rolex/exploration-underwater/trieste.html .

Both Trieste complete with crew and the Rolex watch had to withstand 1100 bar at 10,900 metres depth. That is really quite something!

Good luck Bertrand and André. You will be half way round the world soon.

There is no need to go to the bottom of the Marianas Trench for a spot of pressure testing. Our Sarum Hydraulics Micropac MP series pressure test pumps provide safe and easy hydrostatic testing to 700 bar. Look what we do on www.sarum-hydraulics.co.uk .