[Ali]

I posted in General Chat that I was to be going in a Hot Air Balloon today... and it was utterly fantastic. I cannot begin to describe how wonderful the whole experience was.

Link to thread in Chat

It was quite a cool morning, high cloud and hazy, so the not the best visability but it really didn't matter. It would have been perfect to have had a bright sunny clear morning, but you can't have everything!

I took well over a 100 pictures, obviously not technically the 'best' pictures, but the aim was to enjoy the experience and capture a record of our flight, which I think we did.

Here are just a few - 1st batch:

Balloon laid out


Cold air is first blown into the balloon by a couple of big fans


Filling up




Still a way to go


Once almost inflated hot air is blown in from the burners to lift the balloon over the basket. Once up - it's a bit of a scramble into the basket for take off.
Go for the burn! First burner


Second burner


Our pilot - he was great company


The crew get smaller


and smaller

[Ali]

2nd batch:

Fletching village


Sheffield Park house and gardens


Looking up through the burners


Just a teeny bit of East Sussex National Golf Club (a pretty impressive set up)


A confused cow

[Ali]

3rd batch:

A large Scout Camp (Laughton, East Sussex) was spotted in the distance and chosen as our landing site. The pilot apparently likes an auidence! We landed in the car parking field to the left of the picture.


Lots of scout tents!


Landed! Trying to show how close we were to the parked cars - and you can see the darker strip of grass where the balloon landed and then moved along the grass.


Deflating, slowly!


Lots of squishing and squashing going on.


It was an excellent morning.

[Dave]

Great set of shots & glad you enjoyed yourself. Love the cow shot looking up, probably saying "what the **** is that"

[P-E]

Lovely set of pictures and what an experience

[_MB_]

The cow's my favourite