Good day, my dear readers!
Two days ago I had a very interesting new experience: I did a tour with a hot air balloon!
Although I was a bit sceptic before I must say it was just great! I won't forget this for a lifetime, I guess~
Well, let me share some impressions with you. One was allowed to take photos, and of course I did so ^___^
Let us start with the balloon itself. The skin is made of tent material, about 30 metres long when rolling it out, measures about more than 1500m² and has the capacity to hold the amount of 8500 cubic metres of gas. It is an incredible size, but I thought the balloon would look even bigger in the end... ^___^;
This is the basket, lying on the side. This is important for the procedure when pumping up the balloon which is a quite complicated and even a bit dangerous issue... Let me explain it further:
The basket holds twelve people plus the pilot in the middle, under the gas supporter. Six people hold the basket at its hooks you can see here, the other six have to hold two ropes which are not visible here. These ropes are laid besides to the balloon skin, serve for aerodynamic purposes for the start and landing and have to be hold straight while the balloon gets heated.
Well, at first the balloon gets pumped up with cold air from the two ventilators you can see here. The more air gets in, the harder holding the ropes become... I was in the "rope holding team" and stood at the top end of the balloon. It was really hard to hold the skin when it almost was blown up entirely...
The next step was a risky one: Of course the balloon wants to lift off when hot air gets in, and what to do when half of the people is still standing at the top end and not in the basket at all? So everybody had to get in quickly: Bit by bit we had to let go off the rope, run the 30 metres to the basket and to get in as fast as possible. Luckily I was in the pole position and I am a good runner, so I was at and in the basket quite fast - absolutely unproblematic.
The lift off happened faster than I had expected: When everybody got in the balloon already wanted to drift away, but it was hold by a rope that was loosened in the end. And finally we left the ground and won height very quickly! I thought a balloon would be slower... Well, we weren't very fast with normal speed in the air: 7 km/h is as fast as a relaxed jogging tempo ^___^ It's like walking through the air~
This is from where we started: The Rheinaue, Bonns big park. We will head to the Siebengebirge over there, in direction of my home~
A view back on Bonn~
The weather conditions were quite good, it almost was a bit less windy and we "only" drove nine kilometres in the end. But that doesn't matter, it was a really enjoyable tour~
Oh, and it is really not cold up there: I was able to wear my normal clothes. Around 900 feet altitude the air isn't colder than on the ground at all, I was surprised!
We now approach my home village ^___^ I even could see our house, it's somewhere at the very left of this photo - left to the small orange one in the upper row of the houses with the black roofs~
A view down. At the beginning I wasn't in "flight mode" and a bit afraid of the altitude, but quickly I got used to the feeling again and wasn't scared anymore. After that looking down was no problem at all, especially because we were moving that slowly. I would even have appreciated the basket's floor being made of glass, that would have been even more impressing ^____^
You can also see our ferry there~
And this is where we moved in the end: Bonn Wachtberg. At the beginning it seemed as if we would cross the Rhine and land somewhere behind the hills of the Siebengebirge, but the wind direction changed when driving along the riverside and we stayed on the left side. Even the pilot was surprised ^___^
The rapeseed fields looked so beautiful~
Over there you can see the village where I went to school. There are two small islands in the Rhine, Grafenwerth and Nonnenwerth island.
These are the gas suppliers, the only "motor" a balloon has. They are important for regulating the altitude, but you of course can't control the direction of where one is driving - that's the reason why one drives with a balloon instead of flying. A balloon is always and only dependent on the winds~
The power of these suppliers is gigantic: 3500 kilowatt hours - put your barbecue sausages and steaks over them, they're scorched in the twinkle of an eye xD
When you stand directly besides and under them, they're loud and hot as hell - I was afraid of my hair being burned all the time, but of course nothing happened~
A glance into the balloon. It doesn't look that huge from the inside of the basket... I realized it later when I saw exterior photos from it.
Blast!~ It's impressing to see the fluid gas igniting to such a flame!
Don't you think these houses look like toys? I could imagine very well to rearrange and to move them! I felt like a child again when I had a playmat with streets, houses and cars printed on it ^___^
Well, a bit blurred... But there we have the rest of our team again! The first car is a Land Rover Defender with a trailer for the basket and the balloon, the second one a Sprinter for transporting a part of the passengers back to our starting point. We were shortly before the landing, and they already waited for us there~
It was quite funny to drive over the houses slowly and already sinking again - the poeple down there waved and cheered, and somebody even blew a vuvuzela xD
Right before the landing! The pilot chose this field because nothing but weed was growing there and we wouldn't annoy the land owner, he guessed. We were lucky: We landed just before the gooseberries which you can see there.
Start of deconstructing the balloon. At first the hot air had to leak out, and it needed over ten minutes untilthe skin laid down there (and became infested by snails immediately xD).
There we have our Land Rover with the trailer again~ This car is just great for driving through terrain and soil!
A last glance inside. The next evening everything needed to be build up again for the next tour - what an effort for one hour of driving!
The basket without the balloon. Can you imagine that only the construction costs 70.000€ and needs to be insured for 4.000€ a year? Not the cheapest transportation...
Finally the balloon was wrapped up in a complicated matter and pulled into the big blue bag you can see here. It was really not easy to push it into the trailer again: The whole balloon skin weighs 320kg!
The next issue was to push the basket back into the trailer. In general no big problem, but this time the Land Rover wasn't able to properly park in front of it. The wheels spinned in a downspout in the ground and the car couldn't move backwards. In the end the team decided to push the basket into the trailer from the other side - not the prefered way because the terrain was steep and we had to push it up instead of down the slope... This was a bit more complicated because the basket weighs half a ton in total.
We all had to help pushing on command, and it was way easier to move the basket inside the trailer than to carry the bag...
But in the end we were successful and everything was deconstructed properly~
Well, after the hard work we of course got a reward! Hot air ballooning has a special tradition after the tour which was much fun.
At first everybody got some water to drink, after that the champagne was flowing ^___^ While standing together, talking and having an enjoyable evening every new balloon passenger got an "air baptism" and was levied to aristoracy what is based on the history of air ballooning. So also nowadays it is a tradition to be ennobled after one's first tour:
You have to fall on your knees (like being ennobled in the Middle Ages) and a strand of your hair is burned (what stands for the fire that is needed to reheat the balloon).
I got the title Baroness~
The last stage of our trip was the drive back to the Rheinaue where we started and where the event officially also ended. It was already after 10pm when we arrived there again.
It's a pity that the Land Rover Defender isn't produced anymore... I loved driving with this car!
(please ignore my focus on cars although it should be laid on the balloon here xD)
Well, that's how a wonderful evening ended. I just can recommend doing a hot air balloon tour to everybody who wants to get to know an unknown way of transportation and to have some action and adventure at the same time. I would definitely do it again ^___^
See you next time~
Junsui
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