Balloon Drop

In the winter of 1996 two of my sons, Wayne and Neil Evans, with a couple of mates from the Blue Mountains Hang Gliding Club, did something that had rarely been done before in Australia. They launched their hang gliders from beneath a hot air balloon.

Canowindra (it's pronounced Ca-noun'-dra, not Can-o-win'-dra) in mid-western New South Wales calls itself the balloon capital of Australia, and few people would contest that claim. The sheltered valley with its gentle winds and warm days lends itself to ballooning and every April "Marti's Festival" attracts above fifty balloons to the town.

Double Balloon Lift. This photograph was taken at a subsequent drop. The balloon used by Wayne and Neil at Canowindra is the one on the left. Photograph:  Neil Evans

So unusual was it to launch a hang glider from a balloon that when the Blue Mountains group reached town they found that their flight had been the topic of conversation for days.
It reached a comical note when they booked in at their motel. The proprietor noted the hang gliders pictured on their tee shirts and said, "Are you the blokes who are going to..." and she used her hand in simulated flight to finish the sentence. They told her, "Yes" and she said, "Would you mind paying for your room up front?"
Obviously opinion was divided about whether they would survive!

The balloon pilot they chose was The Flying Pieman whose company was called Balloon Joy Flights. Apparently he was a pastry cook during the week so he was a flying pieman indeed.

Wayne was first to fly and all went well until the point of release. The Pieman had done such a secure job of attaching the kite to the balloon that it took him a couple of attempts to set it free.

William Pene du Bois (in The Twenty-one Balloons) wrote:  "The best way of travel, however, if you aren't in any hurry at all, if you don't care where you are going, if you don't like to use your legs, if you don't want to be annoyed at all by any choice of directions, is in a balloon. In a balloon, you can decide only when to start, and usually when to stop. The rest is left entirely to nature." The same can not be said of hang gliders which can go wherever the pilot chooses and can cover substantial distances if there are enough thermals to provide lift.

Wayne used a video camera attached to his frame to film the flight as he soared above the balloon. Such was the angle of bank that the horizon on the video tape tilted at about 80° as he flew circles around it while it descended quickly to pick up the next passenger.

Neil was next up and was quickly caught up in the euphoria of the thing. So caught up, in fact, that he just followed the balloon as it floated with the wind to it's landing place.

With the wind? Hang on, balloons land with the wind, hang gliders land flying into it. Tail wind landings are too hard, too fast and too dangerous.

It his been said that the comment most often recorded on black box flight recorders in the moments before an aircraft crashes is, "Oh shit!" Rest assured, those words are also recorded on the video of that landing.

But full marks in a difficult situation. Neil managed to get the kite on the ground (I won't call it a landing) without damaging either the equipment or himself.

If you've ever taken a balloon ride you'll know how peaceful it can be (as long as you ignore the sound of barking dogs, upset by the burner passing overhead). It's completely relaxing, carefree and enjoyable.

But if you want the ultimate balloon experience, next time you go ballooning strap yourself into a hang glider first.

Good luck!