Flight Report: G-CEGG ~ 1st August 2015 AM

Posted on 5th August 2015 by 5WC in G-CEGG, Hot Air Ballooning

It feels like I’m getting rather good at this precision flying. Once again I’ve manage to mirror a flight I’ve previously made – taking off and landing in exactly the same places – because, almost a year to the day that I flew from Hungerford to Chieveley, I’ve done it again. However, this time I even manage to predict it before I took off.

Conditions weren’t as good as the previous morning. Rather than light winds, blue skies and a warming sun it was a little grey, misty and with a marked surface inversion meaning any wind on the surface had yet to appear but also, any sign of summer temperatures, I took to the skies trying to convince myself that it really was August and not October. Read more

The 15th “Fly Trap” : G-CEGG Flight Report

Posted on 10th July 2015 by 5WC in G-CEGG, Hot Air Ballooning
G-CEGG - 9th July 2015 - Flight Track

People often joke about how a hot air balloon, especially when landing, appears “out of control”. Talk often turns to how landing in a balloon is essentially, crashing and how it is nothing more than a planned accident. That isn’t true, however, because whilst balloons travel with the wind, going where it blows, you can use the subtle variations in direction at different heights to steer a balloon’s general track (see my previous flight report for an example of extreme change in wind direction at varying altitudes) and of course, we have millimetre control over the height, and rates of ascent and descent of the balloon throughout.

All this means, that we can decide how and when we chose to land. the choice of site thought out and planned long before we ever touchdown. Is there livestock around? Is it arable crop? Where is the nearest road? How easy is vehicle access for retrieval? All questions answered before we arrive back on terra firma ensuring that everything should be simple, safe and with the minimum of disruption for the landowner. The perfect end to the flight. Read more

Flight Report: G-CEGG ~ Hopping Over The Harvest

Posted on 6th August 2014 by 5WC in G-CEGG, Hot Air Ballooning

In my report of my last flight, when I flew from The Dog House to Marcham I said that while no two flights are ever the same, it is interesting how flights can be repetitive. Even though the scenery, length or atmosphere may change, the starting and ending points remain the same. And once again, I have repeated the experience – taking off and landing in the same place as I did last September!

Being a mature student, married to the spare time created by my fight against personal battles as I walk the road to recovery, I am in the dare I say it, enviable position of having the free time to grab a Monday morning flight if the weather is right, even though part of me wishes I didn’t. And with the harvest in full swing there seems no better phrase to say than I simply made hay while they sun shined and took to the skies. Read more

Flight Report: G-DIPZ ~ Here Comes The Rain Again

Posted on 29th June 2014 by 5WC in Choc Dips, Hot Air Ballooning

While it would be nice to fly under crystal blue skies on a warm sunny evening as the chocolate box countryside basks in the last throws of a beautiful days memory, but we can’t always get what we want, or to be precise, we’d hardly ever fly if it did. Occasionally you have to grab a chance to get a flight in between patches of weather and accept, that even though it’s going to be cold, grey and overcast, a flight is a flight and an opportunity to take to the skies once again.

Now sadly, there is no video this time, purely because I’m not used to these early mornings at the moment and my brain wasn’t in “videographer” mode, so attaching the camera rig to the balloon while it’s inflating and leaving it lying on wet grass, results not unsurprisingly, in a wet camera case and therefore, footage that isn’t sharp and clear but rather mottled and hazy. Oh well, lesson learnt.
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Flight Report: G-CDYL ~ Sharing The Skies With Friends

Posted on 5th May 2013 by 5WC in Hot Air Ballooning, Lambert Smith Hampton

One of the biggest attractions for a lot of people towards hot air ballooning is the social side that accompanies it. Whether that’s with the passengers you share a flight with, being in the sky alongside other balloons, or simply the post-flight drink in the P.U.B. after. While I adore cloudhopper flying, there are times when it’s just nice to sit back, relax and partake in a flight with friends, rather than on your own.

Tonight was exactly one of those nights. With glorious sunshine, light winds and a balloon it almost appeared to be begging to take to the skies: my father, myself and good friend, Clive Brash set up for a flight from Folly Dog Leg in Hungerford. On arrival, not unexpectedly, we found a launch site full of other balloons and balloonists all having had the same idea.
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