Ballooning 
Hopping with dinosaurs
Spurred on by a desire to discover when I first flew a Cloudhopper I have found a couple of my missing logbooks whilst sorting out old OS maps and, co-incidently, following a visit to the re-opening of the Oxford University Natural History Museum talk swung to a rather magical and, on the face of it,… Read More ›
Don Cameron – The dark art of Regulation and the Balloon Industry
The-hot air balloon industry is small, employing perhaps one thousand people in the UK and ten thousand in the entire EU. But it is now being destroyed by a large and unnecessary increase in the regulatory burden. Hot-air balloons are simple devices. They travel slowly and have no complex systems. As a result, they are… Read More ›
Not the Lleap Year/Lleap Year Meet – Lleaping into sunny skies
One of the country’s most secret balloon meets went ahead over the first weekend of March. Tricky to give it a date as it does vary which is why it may be called ‘The Leap/Not The Leap Meet’ where a band of confused folk trot off to a venue in the Hay-on-Wye, Welsh Wales area… Read More ›
Diabolically Good – The 13th Dobbiaco Balloon Meet
Ever wondered where the long distance balloonists go to train prior to jumping in gas balloons and taking part in the Gordon Bennett? As it turns this is a reasonably hard-core Alpine Meet where you can easily get caught out if you don’t know what you are up to or turn up ill-prepared. Better known… Read More ›
Flying Tales from Filzmoos – Rock on Tommy?
Its rare that we ever get the chance to recount a story passed to us over the sewing floor. Hippocratic Oath Rules apply in our workshop but this time our guest and his balloon was more than happy to recount the tale. Fair play to him. Graham Holtam and his intrepid fellow aviator Dave Ling… Read More ›
The Twelfth day of Christmas? – Epiphany in Mondovi
Whilst everybody was busying themselves taking down their Christmas Lights and retrieving the fairy from the top of the tree the rather super little town of Mondovi was doing things slightly differently and holding their Epiphany Meet. If you’ve never flown there or thought Epiphany was ET’s mate you have missed a rare treat. If… Read More ›
Defying the Weather Forecast – Icicle 2014
Well who would have thought it, the Icicle went flyable! Looking back over past years this has to be the most Icicle-that-nearly-wasn’t on more counts than one. Following the loss of the Savernake launchsite Pete Bish really did get the maps out and scoured the area for a new launchsite for most of 2013 clocking… Read More ›
A beginners guide to Albuquerque – To do or not to do
Andrew Kaye has flown a very large pile of special shaped balloons amounting to lots of kilos and, having spent his first season flying passenger ride balloons, has now gone off to Australia to fly over Melbourne but before he went he decided he really ought to take The Doll to Albuquerque and fulfil a… Read More ›
Smirnoff – Well they said anything could happen!
“Chris, When was your first hopper flight?” enquired that Hopper Devotee Mr Steve Roake? No idea, but I promised I’d have a look see. Now then, first off I had to find my old logbooks, which has proved to be less than easy, on top of this I have to admit that a lot of… Read More ›
September at Naburn Lock
From the Pennine Region’s smashing super Jan Mitchinson (vice chairman no less) comes this report on their recent very popular Naburn Lock Meet that went head to head with the Grass Roots Meet. Summer decided to perform an encore for PRBA’s September meet, after a couple of weeks of mainly wet and cool weather. Family… Read More ›