Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 5,586
- Location
- Stone, Staffordshire
Those local to OcUK HQ I suspect at some time or other you've seen the "Trentham" hot air balloon flying over the skies in a morning or evening.
For Christmas 2008 I decided I would buy my wife and her parents a ride in the Trentham hot air balloon which is owned and operated by Balloons UK
The first thing to decide is the type of ticket that we where going to purchase. As my inlaws live in Hull we needed maximum flexibility so went for the "Standard Anytime" voucher as that meant we could fly either early morning, or evening 7 days a week.
The balloons only fly twice a day so it's either 6am or 6.30pm so for the humanity of it all we went for the evening flight. It was my mother in laws birthday on 10th August so we booked the flight for the Friday before (7th Aug). The balloons are very sensitive to weather so good visibility, calm winds and no rain are all needed for the flight to go ahead!
Knowing the English weather in the approach to the day I had a feeling that the weather would mess things up for us but low and behold we hit a string of nice days and my confidence in going up was rising!
You have to call after 2pm on the day of your flight to ensure that it is going ahead. An automated flight line call told us that the flight should go ahead and we had to call back at 4pm to double check and to get details of the launch site.
With details in hand we left home to arrive at Trentham for 6.30 where we would receive our safety breifing before our flight began.
We met Tony in the car park of the launch area and he was to be our pilot for the evening. We walked up to the launch site and got our first site of the balloon.
This is the balloon with the basket on the side and 2 petrol powered cool air fans used to get shape into the balloon. The balloon was tethered to the front of the Land Rover which is used to transport and recover the balloon.
The breifing told us how to position yourself during landing and take off and once completed we where ready for the hot fill. From applying the heat from the burners it takes 30 seconds for the balloon to stand upright!
Once the balloon is upright it's necessary to get in the basket as soon as possible to add some weight to the balloon so it doesn't drift off as easily. A couple of foot holes on the side of the basket means that you climb into the padded compartments with your basket mate! The basket is designed for 8 passengers in 4 seperate compartments and when asked to we all hoped inside.
We assumed the position for take off which is basically to hold the rope on the side of the basket and face in the opposite direction for take off (this means that should the basket tip you won't go flying out the front!). With a blast of the burner the pilot released the rope securing us to the Land Rover and we where off. The take off was incredibly graceful and as soon as the basket is off the ground you can release the rope and get the camera out.
The balloon rose and drifted across the launch site.
With just enough air to clear the nearby tress we where kept relatively low as we passed over the lake at Trentham and could see the Italian gardens.
I was amazed at how stable the balloon felt and how quiet it was without the burners on. There where no un-nerving creaks or groans, just spectacular views!
We continued to climb as we left Trentham grounds and crossed the A34. This is the view back from the balloon looking at the Trentham.
We chatted amongst ourselves and quizzed the pilot on the various aspects of the balloon. Tony answered all of our questions and using his laptop and GPS kept a look out on the route we where flying. Obviously you have to go with the direction that the wind is blowing but the pilot has control to spin the balloon on it's axis to ensure we are always facing the direction of flight. The basket has padded sides and a padded floor and you feel completely secure even looking directly down as the basket comes up to about 4ft, maybe even higher!
Tony put more and more hot air into the balloon and we rose steadily to 3000ft and at this point we where doing about 15mph. If you stand at the top of a tall strucutre you will often be nervous as you feel the wind blowing on you. That sensation totally goes in a hot air balloon as you're travelling at the speed of the wind so it's silent with no real sense of speed or movement!
As luck would have it we flew relatively close to our own house so I managed to fire off a few aerial shots of our house which was nice.
During our flight we had an encounter with a micro light who was travelling at the same altitude as us:
We exchanged waves as he then went off to land.
After about 1hr and 15 mins it was time to try and find a suitable place to land. The pilot descended as he looked for suitable landing sites. We can't land where there is livestock or where the fields haven't been cut and so we where on the look out for a nice freshly cut field.
As we drifted low over houses, cars and the canal people would beep and wave at us as we passed by.
Tony spotted a suitable landing site and we where given the instructions to position ourselves for landing. This was the same as the take off positions and so we put the camera away and braced for landing.
The field we landed in had been freshly cut with the straw rolled and bagged. We navigated over some of these bales and then touched down. On first touch down we where still being dragged forward and we all started laughing as the pilot wrestled to bring the balloon to a halt. After a few drags along we came to rest, still upright with no drama about tipping over. Our trip had lasted about an hour and half and we all had had a fantastic trip.
A hatch at the top of the balloon was released and so it started to deflate.
Now the fun and games began. Because you don't know where you are going to land the Land Rover follows the ballon and is contact via radio. The recovery proceedure means that the support crew need to contact the land owner / farmer to obtain permsision and entry to the field we are in. Unfortunately on this occasion that proved not to be the simplest of tasks! We had been advised to expect a delay to be recovered but in the end we waited almost 2 hours to get out of the field! Once the farmer was finally located the field wasn't particularly accesible by Land Rover. This meant that the farmer had to cut open gates and tow the land rover out of various boggy bits that it got stuck in! The land owner is given a bottle of whiskey or champagne each time a balloon lands and this farmer certainly worked for his!!
Despite this minor hick up we all had a fantastic trip and I couldn't recommend it enough to anyone!
This shot shows the basket where you can see the 4 passenger compartments with the pilot in the middle
Views as the sun set whilst we waited for recovery
This (flight route) was the start and end point of our journey with the blue line roughly indicating our flight path. We travelled for approx 14.5 miles as the crow flies!
Thanks for reading!
For Christmas 2008 I decided I would buy my wife and her parents a ride in the Trentham hot air balloon which is owned and operated by Balloons UK
The first thing to decide is the type of ticket that we where going to purchase. As my inlaws live in Hull we needed maximum flexibility so went for the "Standard Anytime" voucher as that meant we could fly either early morning, or evening 7 days a week.
The balloons only fly twice a day so it's either 6am or 6.30pm so for the humanity of it all we went for the evening flight. It was my mother in laws birthday on 10th August so we booked the flight for the Friday before (7th Aug). The balloons are very sensitive to weather so good visibility, calm winds and no rain are all needed for the flight to go ahead!
Knowing the English weather in the approach to the day I had a feeling that the weather would mess things up for us but low and behold we hit a string of nice days and my confidence in going up was rising!
You have to call after 2pm on the day of your flight to ensure that it is going ahead. An automated flight line call told us that the flight should go ahead and we had to call back at 4pm to double check and to get details of the launch site.
With details in hand we left home to arrive at Trentham for 6.30 where we would receive our safety breifing before our flight began.
We met Tony in the car park of the launch area and he was to be our pilot for the evening. We walked up to the launch site and got our first site of the balloon.
This is the balloon with the basket on the side and 2 petrol powered cool air fans used to get shape into the balloon. The balloon was tethered to the front of the Land Rover which is used to transport and recover the balloon.
The breifing told us how to position yourself during landing and take off and once completed we where ready for the hot fill. From applying the heat from the burners it takes 30 seconds for the balloon to stand upright!
Once the balloon is upright it's necessary to get in the basket as soon as possible to add some weight to the balloon so it doesn't drift off as easily. A couple of foot holes on the side of the basket means that you climb into the padded compartments with your basket mate! The basket is designed for 8 passengers in 4 seperate compartments and when asked to we all hoped inside.
We assumed the position for take off which is basically to hold the rope on the side of the basket and face in the opposite direction for take off (this means that should the basket tip you won't go flying out the front!). With a blast of the burner the pilot released the rope securing us to the Land Rover and we where off. The take off was incredibly graceful and as soon as the basket is off the ground you can release the rope and get the camera out.
The balloon rose and drifted across the launch site.
With just enough air to clear the nearby tress we where kept relatively low as we passed over the lake at Trentham and could see the Italian gardens.
I was amazed at how stable the balloon felt and how quiet it was without the burners on. There where no un-nerving creaks or groans, just spectacular views!
We continued to climb as we left Trentham grounds and crossed the A34. This is the view back from the balloon looking at the Trentham.
We chatted amongst ourselves and quizzed the pilot on the various aspects of the balloon. Tony answered all of our questions and using his laptop and GPS kept a look out on the route we where flying. Obviously you have to go with the direction that the wind is blowing but the pilot has control to spin the balloon on it's axis to ensure we are always facing the direction of flight. The basket has padded sides and a padded floor and you feel completely secure even looking directly down as the basket comes up to about 4ft, maybe even higher!
Tony put more and more hot air into the balloon and we rose steadily to 3000ft and at this point we where doing about 15mph. If you stand at the top of a tall strucutre you will often be nervous as you feel the wind blowing on you. That sensation totally goes in a hot air balloon as you're travelling at the speed of the wind so it's silent with no real sense of speed or movement!
As luck would have it we flew relatively close to our own house so I managed to fire off a few aerial shots of our house which was nice.
During our flight we had an encounter with a micro light who was travelling at the same altitude as us:
We exchanged waves as he then went off to land.
After about 1hr and 15 mins it was time to try and find a suitable place to land. The pilot descended as he looked for suitable landing sites. We can't land where there is livestock or where the fields haven't been cut and so we where on the look out for a nice freshly cut field.
As we drifted low over houses, cars and the canal people would beep and wave at us as we passed by.
Tony spotted a suitable landing site and we where given the instructions to position ourselves for landing. This was the same as the take off positions and so we put the camera away and braced for landing.
The field we landed in had been freshly cut with the straw rolled and bagged. We navigated over some of these bales and then touched down. On first touch down we where still being dragged forward and we all started laughing as the pilot wrestled to bring the balloon to a halt. After a few drags along we came to rest, still upright with no drama about tipping over. Our trip had lasted about an hour and half and we all had had a fantastic trip.
A hatch at the top of the balloon was released and so it started to deflate.
Now the fun and games began. Because you don't know where you are going to land the Land Rover follows the ballon and is contact via radio. The recovery proceedure means that the support crew need to contact the land owner / farmer to obtain permsision and entry to the field we are in. Unfortunately on this occasion that proved not to be the simplest of tasks! We had been advised to expect a delay to be recovered but in the end we waited almost 2 hours to get out of the field! Once the farmer was finally located the field wasn't particularly accesible by Land Rover. This meant that the farmer had to cut open gates and tow the land rover out of various boggy bits that it got stuck in! The land owner is given a bottle of whiskey or champagne each time a balloon lands and this farmer certainly worked for his!!
Despite this minor hick up we all had a fantastic trip and I couldn't recommend it enough to anyone!
This shot shows the basket where you can see the 4 passenger compartments with the pilot in the middle
Views as the sun set whilst we waited for recovery
This (flight route) was the start and end point of our journey with the blue line roughly indicating our flight path. We travelled for approx 14.5 miles as the crow flies!
Thanks for reading!
.
