Being steadily dripped on by a giant cup was not the ideal start to a morning. #balloon #bristolballoonfiesta #williamhill
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Being steadily dripped on by a giant cup was not the ideal start to a morning. #balloon #bristolballoonfiesta #williamhill
No effect needed, this is beautiful enough already. Inside Fortnum and Mason. #Fortnum #beautiful #atouchofclass #balloon
Babette freaking out as she jumps in excitement at seeing other balloons. #crazyface #balloon #bristolballoonfiesta
A micro light joined in the fun on Sunday, weaving between the balloons. #nutter #balloon #good morning
Taking off this morning from Sackville Farm's Grass Roots Event. Absolutely wonderful event. #balloon #sackville #sunrise #goodmorning
There is nothing like an early morning mass ascent of balloons. #bristol #balloonfiesta #balloon #sunrise #goodmorning
The Scottish Cup ascends high into a deep blue Bristol sky. #bristol #balloonfiesta #balloon #williamhill #scottishcup #exclusiveballooning #specialshape
Special Shape of the week - G-FTUS - Financial Times.
A huge balloon in the shape of a generic tablet for the Financial Times. Pictured last summer at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta.
Special Shape of the week - G-UPOI
The Disney Pixar balloon, designed to promote the Pixar film Up in 2009.
Happy Monday everyone, have a great week!
Another snap by Dan Whitelock (Ballooning Pictures on Facebook) from the recent Bath Balloon Festival. The event took place on the first weekend in May and was met by unseasonably seasonal conditions!
The first of a selection of photos taken by Dan Whitelock (aka Ballooning Pictures on Facebook) at the Bath Balloon Festival over the first weekend in May. This pictures a brand new passenger rides balloon on its maiden flight for Red Letter Days. The balloon is operated by Bailey Balloons, a passenger-balloon rides company based in Bristol, and is the biggest balloon they've ever had. It's a Cameron-375, which in real terms equates to 375,000 cubic feet. Let me tell you, that's very big!
Marathons, Aerostat and the Easter Bunny
It's time for an update from Orpin Towers my friends. I'm writing today on my iPad because my laptop is having it's time of the month and requires some re-booting tlc so it's quite possible that there will be more spelling mistakes in this blog than normal because of auto-correct so apologies in advance for that. Now, the last two weeks has seen a ridge of high pressure across the UK, and that has been good news for balloonists. Taking advantage of the weather, many people have been out and about and flying. The passenger rides balloons have been taking passengers up on that trip of a lifetime, big commercial sponsors have been taking the opportunity to promote their brands through their balloon, and several new balloons have had their first flights in these advantageous weather conditions. The second Thornbury Balloon Meet did take place on the 4-6 April, but unfortunately conditions weren't as favourable this time around, and a spectacular Night Glow on the Friday evening proved to be the ballooning highlight of the weekend. Fingers crossed this event will be back again next year and we will be blessed with some better flying conditions. As some of you will know, the London Marathon took place last weekend. As some of you will not know, the London Marathon provides a wonderful opportunity for commercial sponsors to display their balloons. Every year, around 10 balloons tether to the ground of Blackheath Common, right next to the Marathon start-line. The press and media coverage this generates is simply awesome. If you're reading this and consider yourself to be a Lehman in the balloon world, you might not be aware of the power of advertising available through a hot air balloon. To put it simply, having a huge inflatable banner for your company twice the size of your house (unless you live in a bungalow, or a block of flats, or a fort or whatever) and then putting it slap bang next to one of the biggest sporting and media events of the year is going to turn a few heads. Personally I feel sorry for the runners. There they are attempting to psyche themselves up for what quite possibly could be the biggest physical challenge of their lives, and they get to the start line and find themselves greeted by these huge balloons and a massive distraction. But anyway, it's fantastic advertising for balloons so I'm not going to criticise! If you watched coverage of the Marathon, it would have been impossible for you to miss the huge balloons at the start-line, that included the giant red special shape cube for Ricoh, who use the balloon to promote their Imagine Change campaign. Hot air balloons are huge advertising bill boards that can fly, and I'll be writing plenty more on this in the coming weeks, hopefully with a functioning laptop again! As it's Easter, you will have spotted that I've posted two photos today of two particularly Easter-themed Special Shapes. Special Shapes are incredible hot air balloons that take the advertising platform to a whole new level, and I'll be writing more about them shortly. One of these Easter balloons remains one of my favourite balloons of all time - the wonderful Cadbury's Caramel Bunny. As a small child I was delighted by the sight of the lovely Miss Caramel, and until I was about 10 I used to call my Gran every April 1st and try to convince her, whilst laughing hysterically, that the Caramel Bunny had landed in our dingy little 5 metre back garden we owned at the time. A comical genius from an early age, as you can tell. One final thought for now - I'm delighted to announce that I've had an article published in Aerostat, the official journal (magazine really) of the British Balloon and Airship Club. This is awfully exciting news, you just can't escape me anywhere these days you looking people you!
Happy Easter everyone! To mark the occasion, here are two photos I have from days of old. The world's largest Cadbury's Creme Egg snapped back in 2003, and the delightful Cadbury's Caramel Bunny snapped way back in 1995.
The beautiful Fortnum & Mason balloon. The balloon was built to match specific requirements from the world-famous shop to make it stand out. Hot air balloons can be used as incredibly powerful marketing and advertising tools.
F-GOCO - A French Special Shape.in the form of a Cockerel.
Thornbury Golf Club Balloon Meet - taken last April. Fingers crossed we see more sights like this at the weekend and the very best of luck to Tom Gouder who organises and runs the event.
The season starts here
As we've now passed the 1st April territory which is typically used by jokers to fool those around them - let's get on with the blog.
Over the coming weeks, this blog will be updated with reports from ballooning events, photography and also guidance for those of you who know absolutely nothing about hot air balloons, over than that they're those big blobs you sometimes see in the sky that look like their almost certainly going to crash into a) someone's roof on that housing estate over there or, b) those massive electricity pylons right in front of them.
But today we begin with a gentle post to ease us in and it's a post full of excitement and the joys of Spring! At least I would be had I not been outside walking for 30 minutes today and subsequently feel like I've caught a 1920's disease because of the air quality.
But enough about that, it is an exciting post because the ballooning season has now began. A friend of mine, who goes by the name of 'Ballooning Pictures' (look him up on Facebook, his photos are immense) has put up an album showing a balloon flying out of Bath yesterday, and this is as sure a sign as any that the season is now underway.
The balloon in question was operated by the Ballooning Network, a rides balloon company which owns Bristol Balloons. For those novices of you, the rides balloons are those ones which you see advertised selling balloon flights for around £120. A lot of them across the UK are blazoned red with the Virgin logo, and if you have friends who have been up in a balloon there is a strong chance they would have flown as a passenger in a Virgin rides balloon.
Rides balloons can hold about 15/20 passengers and some of these huge baskets are even now fitted with seats. The basket is the thing at the bottom where the people go. All right nobody is that much of a novice....or are you I don't know. Anyway, not one to get sidetracked (that's a blatant lie. Anyone I know will tell you that it takes me around half an hour to tell any story. I once submitted an essay drunk and therefore forgot to edit it. It was 3 times as long as it was supposed to be and I'd waffled so much that I managed to go 7 successive pages of text without making any reference to what I was supposed to be talking about. I got a B and the teacher said he liked my creativity. Result.) What was I saying?
Yes, not to get sidetracked, it's always a wonderful sight to see a balloon floating in the sky but the most common balloons you see are the giant rides balloons. With paying passengers and long waiting lists because of the awful British summers, they fly at any opportunity they can. So keep your eyes peeled for those huge Virgin logos up and down the UK.
This coming weekend (5-6 April) sees the first event of the season - the Thornbury Balloon Meet held at Thornbury Golf Club. This event was set up by balloonist Tom Gouder, who I believe to be the only Maltese national in the world to hold a balloon pilot's license. Not to boast his ego too much, I will bring him back down to earth by reminding him that he nearly died at the same event last year after one rather fast take-off....at least we can laugh about it now Tom!
Last year, barring this small incident, the event was a huge amount of fun and was so popular with the golf club that they're welcoming it back for a second year. Among the morning and dusk balloon flights, there are also golfing competitions during the day for the guys to enjoy and such an event brings such a community-spirit feeling for the small ballooning world. Fingers crossed the weather will prevail and we won't all choke to death from pollution before then!
The season's here - next stop Thornbury.