A licensed hot air balloon pilot herself, Ichiyoshi Sabu's wife knows about fear. After her husband came close to losing his life trying to fly over Mount Everest, she put her foot down. No more daredevil stunts, she declared; you've a family to think of. This explains why he will be ground master of an expedition this autumn that aims to fly a hot air balloon from Pakistan to China across the infamous peak K2.

Having (somehow) read his map upside down, I was hot under the collar on arrival at his office in Tokyo's Ogikubo. Despite my failing basic navigation, Sabu remained Mr. Cool. Secretary General of the Japan Buoyant Flight Association, he had just returned from Friedrichshafen, the small German town on Lake Constance where the first Zeppelin airship was launched July 2, 1900. "I was attending the naming of the latest Zeppelin, based on new technology, 100 years later to the day. Just 60-meters long, it's a cross between a blimp and a rigid dirigible -- the direction in which airship design is heading."

Ichiyoshi Sabu, founder of the Balloon Federation of Japan

It was a surprise to hear that the concept of the commercial airship was still alive. Sabu explained that development was stopped not so much by the Hindenberg disaster of 1937, or the fact that not a single airship survived WWII, as by their expense. Early models needed a small army of ground crew. Development these days is toward a design requiring one or no staff on terra firma.

While JBFA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to reviving and boosting interest in airships and all forms of ballooning, Sabu is primarily interested in rising up, up and away as a challenge and for fun. "Right now we've 200 members." For several years Vice president of the FAI Ballooning Commission, an international organization dedicated to promoting ballooning as a sport, he is now Japan's delegate. Through his company, Aeronauts Inc., he sells balloons.

Born in Ogikubo -- heavily bombed during WWII because the factory making Zero fighters was in the area -- his father worked for Mitsubishi as an electric locomotive engineer." Sabu's office was formerly his home, and even today (having remarried and now with two children) he lives close by, so it is true to say that in certain respects he has remained firmly rooted and never strayed far.

Studying theoretical physics at Sophia University, however, he took off in unexpected directions. "I met a specialist in paper-made hydrogen balloons. He'd been an engineer during the war, developing secret projects -- like mobilizing airborne armed soldiers as so-called silent weapons. Years later he was trying to revive the basic concept so it could be adapted for sport."

Intrigued, Sabu learned to inflate balloons made of "washi" paper and glued with "konnyaku," with hydrogen gas. "It was basically the same technique employed by the Imperial Army to utilize high altitude jet streams to carry bombs across the Pacific toward the end of WWII." He also helped try to locate balloon enthusiasts in Europe to gather information and start networking.

After graduating in the early 1970s, he organized the first televised gas balloon event in Japan. "Hosting a team from Europe, the German pilot suggested I go to Augsburg to train for a license." He returned as Japan's first fully accredited gas balloon pilot.

There are two types of ballooning, he said: hot air, and gas. After filling a balloon's "envelope" with hot air created by burning liquid propane, it rises fast but for trips lasting only a few hours. Balloons inflated with gas rely on sand or water ballast to rise and descend, and flights can last up to three days. The first hot air balloon was piloted by a Frenchman in 1783. Recent attempts by British entrepreneur Richard Branson to circumnavigate the globe relied on the largest-ever gas-filled envelopes being swept along on advantageous jet streams.

"After returning to Germany to get my hot air balloon license, I headed for Britain to buy our first balloon," Sabu said. "Ten of us pooled resources to meet the 2 million yen price tag. The original envelope is long gone, but we still have the burner, stored near Watayase reservoir in Tochigi Prefecture. In the early days, our base was a hut. Now we've 10 balloons stored in a purpose-built hanger."

For 20 years Sabu worked for a pharmaceutical rubber company, making highly specialized components for syringes. But ballooning was always his passion. The Balloon Federation of Japan, which he founded in 1974, is an organization of over 1,000 pilots and clubs, and also sets the standard for licenses, air worthiness and registration. Since ballooning is not authorized by Japan's Civil Aviation Authority, Sabu and his colleagues have had to create standards for training and establish rules of conduct on the ground and in flight.

"Everywhere else in the world, ballooning is under government control," he said. "But not here. While this may sound a disadvantage, actually it means we have more freedom -- more control over how we want the sport to develop. The downside is that few Japanese have access to aviation in general as a sport. It's a rich person's hobby. How many private (airplane) pilots do you know? One? Most people don't know any. By comparison, Europe is dotted with small airports; every major city has several. Tokyo has Chofu -- and Narita!"

Short flights are all very well. But Sabu was always into personal challenges. In 1976, in collaboration with a British balloon pilot from Hong Kong, he became the first Japanese to fly solo over Mount Fuji. He made his first "adventure flight" in 1978, rising 8,295 meters in Western Australia in pursuit of an altitude record. The Japanese record has since been broken by Michio Kanda, with Sabu assisting. "The current record stands at 15,000 meters. I've reached 12,000: How was it high above the jumbos? Quiet, cold, oxygenless."

In 1991, a team from Japan, with Sabu as Kanda's copilot, attempted to fly over Everest. "No one had ever done it." (An Australian team also tried and failed in 1992.) "Basically the winds were too strong. Our envelope ripped as we tried to land on a steep glacier, we lost lift and the basket began to tumble." An observer watching from a Chinese aircraft saw it fall 500 meters, becoming entrapped in the envelope as it rolled and bounced.

The other crew members used knives to rip their way out, but Sabu had a broken leg, shoulders, snapped ribs and a punctured lung. "They pulled me out just in time. The burner set fire to the fabric; it was like watching fireworks. Using a walkie-talkie we made contact with Japanese mountaineers whose Sherpas organized our rescue. It was after that my wife said, 'Never again!' I can see her point."

He considers the K2 project an Asian collaboration: "Three of us will be working with Pakistani and Chinese friends. But this is an even more dangerous project. Weather conditions must be perfect; we'll be on the lookout for the perfect, stable jet stream to carry us over. The problem is that while jet stream forecasts are stable, surface conditions can change rapidly. Without sponsorship, our window of opportunity's limited. We'll have 10 to 20 days; we can't hang around any longer. If conditions don't come right, we'll have to give up."

On the domestic front, ballooning in Japan operates on three levels: fun flights for passengers, training and club activities -- like the festival organized in Hokkaido every January, to spotlight the sport. "I've participated annually since it began 25 years ago. Special burners make the balloons especially attractive at night."

Asked what it would cost to make a 30-minute flight from Tochigi, Sabu broke into a rare smile. "Assuming a person can get there for 6a.m., and the weather is OK, say around 15,000 yen? For friends we suggest a bottle of champagne." Which helps explain his club's very large cellar!