Saturday Night

WooooHoooo!!............Flight on for Saturday evening from Marlborough!.....Went to collect passengers from the High Street, told by very official sounding Policeperson that the High Street was closed because of an 'INCIDENT'........could not bring himself to say there was a gas leak!!!
After herding all the passengers up and getting them on the bus, it was off to the launch site at Cleft Common Micro light airstrip.
What a lovely evening, launch was pretty smooth.....then as they ascended they went off to the West at 18kts........time to chase...fast....
Landed about 20 miles away at Keevil Airfield. Keevil is a civilian/military airfield where we have landed on many occasions..........Tonight we were not so welcome due to 'military operations' which banned any aircraft landing on Sat/Sun!!......Pilot was totally oblivious to this and landed gently to be met by a couple of guys who were obviously part of the 'operation'.....but looked and smelled like farmers......they agreed to open the gate, which was 'double padlocked!!!'.....but we had to retreave as fast as possible and NOT mention the fact that they had let us in.....so if you read this, remove from your memory, otherwise I will have to kill you!. On exit, pilot caught the gate with back of trailer and it took four people ten minutes of brute force and ignorance to straighten said gate!....so much for stealth!......silly to drive in the dark without your lights on!!!

Frustration!!!

Here we are then......wall to wall blue sky.......but the wind is too brisk.....OK, so it is a cooling breeze.......but too strong to launch!.......watch this space....

Bank Holiday Monday

Another launch from Glastonbury took us NW over the levels on a 'high cloud' morning, landing gently about 3 miles from Bridgewater....nice farmer, easy access, no problems!!!

Break in the Weather

Managed to get a launch from Glastonbury on Friday evening.......High cloud went a bit dark at one stage but no rain!,......Balloon flight went very close to the Tor and the passengers took some great photo's............Long flight.....1 hr 55 mins due to lack of suitable landing sites on the Somerset levels! Eventually had to land, because of sunset, in a vacant horse paddock! The owner of the land was charming but relieved that the horses were in bed when the balloon arrived!

Bank holiday looks good up til PM Monday.... so fingers crossed!

Bloody Weather

No flying at the moment due to crap weather.........luckily I have been at Chelsea Flower Show, helping build the stand for 'English Wirework', which puts bread on the table when the balloon can't go!.

Tried to launch from Cheltenham Racecourse on Saturday evening........wind refused to drop out......cancelled at 1930 with sadness! Hey Ho....there is plenty of summer to come!

Too Much Wind

Far too windy at the moment......hopefully dying down for the weekend!.....watch this space.

May Bank Holiday

Saturday morning was stunning....blue skys and light winds for the launch from Victoria Park.....headed East/S East landing at Semington.....Landowner was nice chap and the recovery was pretty normal for a change!

The evening flight was from Pandy on the edge of the Black Mountains.....bit windy at launch, but as soon as the balloon left the ground the wind dropped out!....Lovely evening flight NE towards Hereford.....landed in a field right next to the road with easy access.......Landowners were really excited that we had landed on their field.......and were only sad that they missed the site of a huge balloon coming into land!