Hot air balloon pilot and passenger in basket
'Hot air ballooning' is the activity of flying
hot air balloons.
Attractive aspects of
ballooning include the exceptional quiet (except when the propane burners are firing), the lack of a feeling of movement, and the bird's-eye view. Since the balloon moves with the wind, the passengers feel absolutely no wind, except for brief periods during the flight when the balloon climbs or descends into air currents of different direction or speed.
For information on
hot air balloons, see the related article.
History
Unmanned hot air balloons are mentioned in
Chinese history.
Zhuge Liang in the
Three Kingdoms era, Shu Kingdom, used airborne lanterns for military signaling.
These lanterns are known as
Kongming lanterns (孔明灯).
There is also some speculation that hot air balloons were used by the Nazca Indians of Peru some 1500 years ago as a tool for designing
vast drawings on the Nazca plain.
[1]
First recorded flight
The first clearly recorded instances of balloons capable of carrying passengers used hot air to obtain
buoyancy and were built by the brothers Josef and Etienne
Montgolfier in Annonay, France. They were from a family of paper manufacturers who had noticed the ash rising in fires. After experimenting with unmanned balloons and flights with animals, the first balloon flight with humans on board took place on
October 19 1783 with the physician
Pilâtre de Rozier, the manufacture manager,
Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and
Giroud de Villette, at the
Folie Titon in actual Paris. Officially, the first flight was 1 month later,
21 November 1783.
King Louis XVI had originally decreed that condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but a young physicist named
Pilâtre de Rozier and the
Marquis Francois d'Arlandes successfully petitioned for the honor. The first hot air balloons were basically cloth bags (sometimes lined with paper) with a smoky fire built on a grill attached to the bottom. They had a tendency to catch fire and be destroyed upon landing.
Military use
The first military use of aircraft took place during the
French Revolutionary Wars, when the French used a tethered
hydrogen balloon to observe the movements of the Austrian army during the
Battle of Fleurus (1794). Hot air balloons were employed during the
American Civil War. Though the military balloons used by the
Union Army Balloon Corps under the command of Prof.
Thaddeus S. C. Lowe were limp silk envelopes inflated with
coke gas or hydrogen, the
Confederate Army did attempt to counter with a rigid Montgolfier style hot air, or "hot smoke balloon." Captain John R. Bryant inflated his rigid cotton balloon with a fire of oil-soaked pine cones. The balloon was soon captured by Union forces as the Confederate's techniques of balloon handling were not competent.
Modern revival
The first modern hot air balloon was designed and built in 1960 by
Ed Yost. He made the first free flight of such an aircraft in
Bruning,
Nebraska on
22 October 1960. Initially equipped with a plastic envelope and kerosene fuel, Yost's designs rapidly moved onto using a modified propane powered "weed burner" to heat the air and lightweight nylon fabric for the envelope material.
Today
Hot air balloons in flight
Today, hot air balloons are used primarily for recreation. There are some 7,500 hot air balloons operating in the United States.
Hot air balloons are able to fly to extremely high altitudes. On
November 26,
2005, Vijaypat Singhania set the world altitude record for highest hot air balloon flight, reaching 21,290 meters (69,852 feet). He took off from downtown
Bombay,
India and landed 240 km (150 miles) south in
Panchale. The previous record of 19,811 meters (64,980 ft) had been set by
Per Lindstrand on
June 6,
1988 in
Plano, Texas. However, like all registered aircraft, oxygen is needed for all crew and passengers for any flight that reaches and exceeds an altitude of 12,500 feet.
On January 15, 1991, a balloon carrying
Per Lindstrand (born in
Sweden, but resident in the
UK, and
While it is certainly possible to enjoy the sport of hot air ballooning without a chase vehicle, returning from the landing site by foot, bicycle, or hitch hiking, many balloonists opt to be followed by their ground crew in some sort of chase vehicle. Crew at the landing site can aid with the landing itself, by catching a drop line and guiding the balloon into a tight space; with extracting the balloon system from a remote location, such as deep in a farmer's field; and with packing up all the equipment.
There are two primary options in chase systems: with a trailer or without. A trailer can provide a lot more room but at the cost of being more difficult to maneuver, especially when turning around in tight locations. A
pickup truck or
van by itself can be a lot more maneuverable but at the cost of squeezing all the equipment, crew, pilot, and passengers into a single vehicle. Many chase vehicles are fitted with a
cargo liftgate to aid in loading heavy equipment into the cargo space (the envelope itself can weigh 250 lbs or more).
Communication between the balloon and chase vehicle can be accomplished by
two-way radio,
mobile phone, or even shouting, when they are close enough together.
Landing
Most pilots try to perform as smooth a landing as possible. This becomes difficult if the air at ground level is moving at more than 5 mph or so. If the balloon is moving at this speed or more when it contacts the ground, the basket (which usually does not have wheels of any kind on the bottom) may drag for a bit or even tip over. Even the presence of ground crew may not help much. The combined weight (for an average passenger-carrying system as calculated above) can easily exceed the weight of a large automobile. (It is best not to be on the downwind side of a landing balloon to avoid being pinned between it and a hard place.) Pilots can improve the situation by landing in a spot protected from the wind, such as behind a line of trees or in a small valley.
Once the balloon has landed, the envelope is deflated and detached from the basket. The envelope is then packed into its carrying bag. The burner and the basket may be separated and all components are packed into the retrieve vehicle.
Competition
In competition, the pilots need to be able to read different wind directions at different altitudes. Balloon competitions are often called "races" but they're most often a test of accuracy, not speed. For most competitive balloon flights, the goal is to fly as close as possible to one or more exact points called "targets". Once a pilot has directed the balloon as close as possible to a target, a weighted marker with an identifying number written on it is dropped. The distance between a pilot's marker and that target determines his or her score. During some competitive flights, pilots will be required to fly to 5 or more targets before landing. To assist with navigation, topographic maps and GPS units are used. Another common form of competition is the "Hare and Hound" race. The Hare balloon takes off a set amount of time before the Hound balloons and typically flies with multiple altitude changes to make it more difficult for the chasing balloons to match its flight path. After a set amount of flight time, the Hare will land and typically lay out a target cross for the Hounds to drop their weighted markers near. As above, the distance between a pilot's marker and the target determines his or her score.
Some experienced pilots are able to take a flight in one direction then rise to a different altitude to catch wind in a returning direction. With experience, luck, and the right conditions, some pilots are able to control a precision landing at the destination. On rare occasions, they may be able to return to the launch site at the end of the flight. This is sometimes called a box effect, usually when flying in valleys with drainage winds.
Hazards
The dangers of the sport include excessive (vertical or horizontal) speed during landing, mid-air collisions that may collapse the balloon, and colliding with high voltage power lines. It is the last of these, contact with power lines, that poses the greatest danger. One of the most common causes of serious ballooning accidents in the US is power line strikes.
[1]
One reason for the high frequency of such incidents is the fact that pilots often attempt to land their balloons on or near roads in order to reduce the amount of off-road driving necessary to recover the balloon. However, in most rural areas where balloons fly, roads usually have power lines running along them.
Of the 11 accidents involving fatalities recorded by the
NTSB between 1997 and 2007, 4 involved contact with power lines, 3 involved falling after hanging onto the outside of a rising balloon, 3 involved striking an object on landing (boulder, wall, or tree), and 1 involved an equipment failure (an eyebolt).
[2]
The recent advent of vertically aerodynamic sport balloons which can climb and descend at twice the rate of a conventional balloon (1500 ft/min as opposed to 700 ft/min) has significantly increased the danger posed by collision or accidental ground impact during competition. Many pilots have also reported strange aerodynamic performance during very aggressive climbs, such as greatly reduced air resistance at vertical speeds over +1500 ft/min, resulting in a sudden, unexpected acceleration. At present there is little research into high vertical-speed balloon flight to understand this phenomenon.
Night flight
Hot air balloons at night
The FAA requires balloons to fly under
visual flight rules. If equipped with lights that make it visible to other aircraft, balloons can fly in the dark. However, such flights are usually limited to either "dawn patrol" flights that begin before sunrise with landings made after there is sufficient light to see any obstacles or to race/record flights that typically go throughout the night and the landing again made during daylight hours.
Winter flight
The ability to fly hot air balloons in the winter is limited mostly by the ability of the participants to withstand the cold. The balloons themselves fly well in cold air. Because the temperature difference between inside and outside the balloon, not the absolute inside temperature, determines the lift it develops, a much lower internal temperature is sufficient to fly in cold weather.
However, if the liquid propane in the fuel tanks is too cold (0°C/32°F or less) it does not generate sufficient vapor pressure to adequately feed the burner(s). This can be overcome by charging the fuel tanks with inert gas such as
nitrogen[3] or by warming them, with
electric heat tapes for example, and insulating them against the cold.
[4]
Tethering
Sometimes, especially at balloon festivals or other special events, balloons will be flown while still tied to the ground by ropes, referred to as 'tethers'. This enables the pilot to provide shorts rides to many passengers instead of drifting with the wind away from the event with just one load of passengers. There are a variety of tethering techniques, depending on the balloon manufacturers instructions and current wind conditions. Tethers can be attached to the basket, burner support, the top of the envelope, or any combination thereof. Even though tethered, a registered aircraft is considered to be flying as soon as it leaves the ground, and is subject to all the appropriate rules and regulations.
Tethered balloons are sometimes inflated at night, an event called a "night glow" for the impressive visual effects. At such events, pilots will usually operate the liquid valve known as the whisper burner (or sometimes called the ''cow burner'' as it is designed to make a different sound when operating so as not to startle livestock) on the burner creating a spectacular bright orange flame instead of the main valve which creates the more typical (and efficient) blue flame.
Events
Main articles: Hot air balloon festivals
There are many regular gatherings of balloons and balloonists around the world. Most of these events are held on an annual basis. The festivities provide both a place for balloonists to interact as well as a venue for entertaining spectators. Events range in size from a few balloons and no spectators to hundreds of balloons with hundreds of thousands of spectators. One such event is the
Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.
Traditions
Over the long history of ballooning, several traditions have developed.
Champagne
A common tradition among balloonists is to have a
champagne toast upon landing. Legend has it that early French aeronauts carried champagne to appease angry or frightened spectators at the landing site.
[5]
A champagne toast is now often included in commercial sight-seeing flights.
Toast
A popular toast among balloonists is: "soft winds and gentle landings."
In popular culture
In song
The song ''Blown By The Wind'' from the 1996
Alan Parsons release
On Air captures the languid and ethereal spirit of flight without navigation.
''
Up, Up and Away'' is the debut
album by
American pop group
The Fifth Dimension, released in 1967 (see
1967 in music). The title track, by
Jimmy Webb was released as a
single and became a major pop hit, reaching #7 on the ''
Billboard'' chart.
In cinema
In
The Wizard of Oz (1939), the wizard leaves the Emerald City in a hot air balloon.
In
Enduring Love (2004), a hot air balloon is involved in a tragic accident during the opening scene.
In literature
Around the World in Eighty Days (1873) by
Jules Verne
In
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) by
Ray Bradbury, a hot air balloon with the Dust Witch, is sent to find out and mark the location of the boys' homes.
In television
On
Dora the Explorer Benny the Bull, and often rides in a hot air balloon.
On
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, disaster strikes and their hot air balloon crashes in the uncharted Amazon jungle.
In advertising
RE/MAX, an international real estate company, uses a hot air balloon with their name on it as their main
logo. They also sponsor a fleet of hot air balloons that make frequent appearances at
hot air balloon festivals and other events.
In video games
In players ride in a hot air balloon over Crocodile Cauldron.
In
Chao (Sonic the Hedgehog), a Hero Chao and a Dark Chao float in front of the characters in a hot air balloon.
See also
★
Hot air balloon
★
Hot air balloon festivals
★
List of balloon uses
★
Montgolfier brothers
Gallery
References
1. Rare Electrocution Due to Powerline Contact in a Hot-Air Balloon: Comparison with Fatalities from Blunt Trauma
2. Fatal Balloon Accidents between Jan 1997 and Jan 2007
3. Lindstrand Fuel System: Burners & Tanks
4. Deciding which method is best for you: Nitrogen vs. Heat Tapes
5. Quick Chek New Jersey Festival of Ballooning: History of Ballooning
★ ''The Science and Art of Hot Air Ballooning'' by Jackson and Diehtl, Garland Publishing Inc, 1977
★ ''How to Fly a Balloon'' by Stockwell and Kalakuka, Balloon Publishing Company, 1999
★ ''Balloon Ground School Home Study Manual'' by Stockwell, and Kalakuka, and Grady, Balloon Publishing Company, 1997
External links
Organizations
★
FAI International Balloon Committee
★
Balloon Federation of America
★
International Aeronauts League
★
Association of UK Balloon Operators
★
Connecticut Lighter Than Air Society (CLAS)
General ballooning sites
★
AdventuresAloft.com Balloon Ride Directory
★
Hot Air Ballooning - How balloons fly, list of balloon clubs, free classified ads for balloonists
★
Blastvalve Ballooning Website
★
Hot Air Balloon Web Links
★
E-Hot-Air-Ballooning Website
★
Balloonsworld.com - Balloonsite and community for pilots world wide
★
Make your own solar balloons, get them pre-built - all about solar-powered hot air balloons
History
★
Possible prehistoric Nazca hot air balloon
★
Balloon History - More information about the history of hot air balloons
Misc
★
Balloon quotations
★
High-resolution hot air balloon photos
★
Balloon photo database
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