In the same way that there are many different types and sizes of car, there are as many diferent types and sizes of hot air balloons. For me, one of my absolutely favourites, are the small one man balloons known as cloudhoppers. Where the traditional wicker basket is replaced with a simple seat for the pilot.
Lucozade are currently using a cloudhopper to advertise their YES campaign as they feel the small, sleek image better fits their active brand, and I spent two days tethering the balloon at the National Sports Center, Crystal Palace for the Aviva London Athletics Grand Prix.
Operated by Airship & Balloon Company, the balloon was tethered next to the tube station between the entrances to both stands at the athletics stadium ensuring that as the public arrived they couldn’t help but notice the balloon.
I tethered the balloon for most of the afternoon in near perfect conditions, ensuring maximum exposure for Lucozade, before unfortunately, being beaten by the weather, and around 6pm the wind picked up to a point where it wasn’t safe to keep the balloon inflated.
However, the forecast was suggesting that while the wind would pick up in the early evening just as it had, once the sun had set, the wind would once again die down and allow us safe conditions to tether the balloon.
The forecast was bang on, and just after sunset, I was able to reinflate the balloon and steal the show as the light from the balloon illuminates the balloon like a giant lightbulb. A spectacle that virtually no other form of advertising can compete with for sheer impact.
Weather forecasters, especially UK based ones have a bad reputation for either getting the forecast totally wrong or simple hiding behind the old ‘Sunshine and Showers’ card. These days, however, when it comes to aviation forecasting they are usually accurate in their predictions.
Unfortunately, they’d predicted that day two of the athletics meet would bring some rain and much strong winds, and annoyingly, they were right. This meant, that we would have a lot of waiting around…
You get used to waiting around when the weather is bad for the one opportunity to inflate the balloon. After all, I’m a pilot who wants to tether and fly balloons, not sit around in a car bored. With the showers having cleared past London, we took the chance to inflate the balloon and while it was still rather windy, we managed to get it hot inflated to the delights of everyone around.
Lucozade’s YES campaign is all about those moments in life where you just want to go YES, from an athlete crossing the finish line first, to the commuter running for the bus and making it, as a balloon pilot having sat around watching it rain a few hours earlier, finally doing some ballooning was my YES moment that day!
