The Hot Air Balloon Flight
From Preparation to Landing
Hot Air Balloon Flights take place either shortly after sunrise, or a couple of hours before sunset, when conditions are generally at their calmest
Once we have met you at our meeting point, we will travel to the launch site, if it is not at the meeting point. Once we arrive at the launch site, we unload the balloon and carry out a safety briefing with the passengers.
The balloon envelope (canopy) is connected up to the corners of the burner frame, once the basket has been tipped over onto its side. A fan is used to blow cold air into the balloon, which allows the balloon to take on its inflated form, laying on the ground, before turning on the burners to heat up the internal air.
Passengers are more than welcome to get involved and assist with the preparations.
Once the envelope has been connected up to the burner frame, the envelope is spread out on the ground to ease the cold inflation phase of the preparations.
The fan is placed near the mouth (bottom) of the envelope and this directs cold air into the balloon prior to and during the hot inflation. This means that it is the internal air that is being heated up rather then the balloon fabric. The cold-air fan is turned off before the balloon stands up.
The burners of a hot air balloon are extremely powerful and quickly heat up the air inside the envelope in order to make the balloon ‘lighter than air’.
The balloon burners are around 20 million BTUs each (we generally have two burners) compared to a central heating boiler, which has around 80-100,000 BTU.
Once the balloon has been inflated, the passengers are invited to climb into the basket. The basket has a foothole in the side to assist entry and exit.
It then takes around 5 minutes to heat the inside of the balloon up to temperature (up to 100 deg C) to enable the balloon to lift off the ground.
When the balloon has positive lift, the safety line is removed and the ground slowly sinks away. We are then on our way – destination unknown! Don’t forget that balloons travel with the wind, so there is little opportunity to steer the balloons, other than by maybe finding a different wind direction at different altitudes.
Our retrieve crew follow the balloon, in radio contact, and aim to be at the landing field when the balloon lands, around an hour later. The crew will then contact the landowner to gain permission to recover the balloon from their land.
Once permission has been gained from the landowner, the balloon is packed away and loaded up into the trailer. We then take the trip back to the meeting place, where we enjoy a glass of champagne – a traditional end to the adventure. We always carry soft drinks for children or non-drinkers.
