ANP Travel

I never like getting up early in the morning but today is different I have booked a hot air balloon ride and I'm required to be up at the crack of dawn to be at the centre for the launch. I travelled to the balloon centre driving while still dark and while the rest of England sleeps under a full moon. I eventually arrive at the Balloon centre and start to meet up with the other intrepid passengers for our flight.

The Virgin Hot Air Balloon center which is manned by qualified pilots CAA approved and generally very good and professional team.

The flight consists of a safety brief and an outline of where today's flight might take you as the balloon is very much in the hands of the prevailing wind. The skill of the pilot can make the difference by knowing that wind travels in different directions at different altitudes a skilled pilot can make the Hot Air Balloon travel in almost the direction he or she wants providing there is sufficient fuel to rise and lower the balloon.

A hot Air Balloon is made up of three parts and they consist of the Basket, the burner and envelope. The basket for todays flight holds quite a few so the envelope must be massive there is a calculation for the load but I was never good at working things like that out. It was a lot of cubic feet of air anyway.
The parts of the balloon are started to be assembled. The passengers are volunteered to roll out and stretch out the envelope.

The weather for today was absolutely perfect the sun could be seen just making its appearance over the horizon and the temperature although a little chilly not too bad at all however this is at ground level. When the balloon gets up into the air it can be very chilly indeed. Most balloon companies provide very good information on what to wear and bring the main item being a woolly hat as you need to protect your head from the cold.

After the safety briefing and a good cup of tea the balloon team and pilot instruct you in how to roll out the balloon and help out with the start of the inflating. The balloons are pumped with cold air to start with to start to fill the envelope before the burner is used on its side to heat up the cold air inside the balloon.

After A while of expert inflation of the envelope the basket is balanced and the lucky passengers get to climb in and wait for the moment when the balloon is ready to lift off.

The balloon is then untied carefully by the ground crew and the burner is used in small bursts to bring the craft off the ground and rising slowly into the air. With a cheer we the passengers gasp as the ground slowly moves away from us as the burner goes off and we gently rise.
At this time of the morning there is not that much activity and you get to drift over the land in a very quiet peaceful manner as the world below wakes up from its slumber. Hot air Balloons are flown very early in the morning or just around sunset in the evening as this is the time that the air is most still across the land.

During the normal part of the day there is too much thermal activity for it to be safe to fly a hot air balloon and the wind is too unstable as . Todays early morning flight went very well It was a breath taking experience all round. A hot air balloon is tracked by a ground crew this helps when we land to pack up the balloon and get off the farmers land.

Hot Air Balloon flights have to land somewhere and mostly it is in farmers fields most farmers are not to bothered by a Hot Air Balloon landing and a bottle of good scotch usually smooths over the landing. However some farmers are hostile and some pilots have maps indicating hostile farm land owners.

Landing is the only part you get a little bit more apprehensive about as depending on fuel and the surrounding area sometimes you feel that you are going to land with a big bump and sometimes you're not it's down to the skill of the pilot.

We had a good pilot and although the basket ends up horizontal fairly quickly it was deemed to be a reasonable landing for us. The tracking crew with GPS that had followed the balloon where soon there to help with deflating and packing up of the balloon with a glass of champagne to help us with our nerves.