Walking on air

Last summer, we took a hot air balloon ride while visiting in Charlottesville, Virginia. We arranged for a sunrise launch, and were involved in setting up the canopy and the basket with Scott and Kelly from Bonaire Charters.

Test Fire, by Richard.

As ephemeral a thing as a hot air balloon might seem, there is a lot of technology that goes into getting it off the ground. There are hundreds of yards of rip-stop nylon all tied together with yards and yards of dacron rope used for control. There is a huge burner with tanks, regulators and controls to keep the air in the canopy warmer than the ambient temps. There is the biggest wicker basket I’ve seen outside of that Indiana Jones movie, and there are radios for keeping contact with the chase vehicle and the other flyers. Oh, and let’s not forget the double-dooley pickup truck with the lift gate that gets it all to the launch point and packs it up at the end.

Richard in the Whale, by Jonah.

The canopy is pre-inflated with a large fan until it is about this size and shape. Then the fire is turned on, the air heats up and the whole apparatus rights itself and strains to leave the ground. That’s Linda kneeling to the left of the fan and that double-dooley to give some sense of scale

Morning Mists by Linda

Once you are up, you are truly in a different world. Since the balloon is being driven by the wind, you feel nothing but stillness. The burner is only fired when the air temps in the canopy start to fall, and only for a couple of seconds at a time. Although small, the gondola is roomy and there is no feeling of danger. There is also no feeling of being far above the ground. As Scott explained it, there is no building or other structure leading down from you to the ground and so there is no visual cue as to how high you are. You very quickly acclimate to the environment and start to look around and start seeing things from a whole new point of view ;->.

Balloon Reflection byLinda

All too soon, the ride is over. The chase truck is positioned where we are coming down, which this day was in a park with a nice lake. Scott offered a ‘dip and go’, where he touches the water briefly and rises again, but with a bunch of camera equipment on the floor of the gondola we deferred.

At the end of the ride, we are demoted (promoted?) from passengers to crew and help them deflate and pack the canopy and other equipment. Although we had landed, it took a good while before we had our feet back on the ground.

Qixotic Imagery

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