Go Where The Wind Takes You
Here at Virgin Balloon Flights we often jest to each other to go where the wind takes you, which is often the case with our pilots!
It takes an immense amount of skill to fly a hot air balloon, with reading the wind direction and speeds at different altitudes to ‘steer’ the hot air balloon, however, upon landing, it generally means taking the first open space as an opportunity to land.
Yesterday, on the 16th of June, the children of Buckden Primary School in Cambridgeshire got to witness this first-hand! As the balloon was descending towards the school, our pilot, Pete Philpot, saw the children run out in excitement as the head teacher beckoned the pilot to land in their field and upon landing was surrounded by very excited little faces as a massive balloon stood before them!
Credit out to Christian Payne at Documentally for the photos!
There is generally a lot of confusion around hot air balloon landings, as some people assume that there must be something wrong with the balloon when we land in some peculiar places, which was the case with a local newspaper in Cambridge! This quickly got cleared up as BBC took their time to get the information correct before creating an article on the thrilling day the children had!
Due to the lovely English weather, we are all used to the finite amount of fuel we can carry, and having 16 passengers on a flight means we generally fly for 45-75 minutes before looking for a place to land, which is why we take the first opportunity, especially when we have happy and friendly faces calling us to land in their field!
As well as the excitement the children had due to having one of our iconic balloons land on their doorstep, the school teachers also took up the opportunity to give their students a science lesson on how the balloon can float up into the skies!
Due to the hype in the town surrounding the Hot Air Balloon landing, we had some radio coverage which our pilot jumped onto to explain the situation and why he landed in the school field.
Don’t forget, life is all about perspective and how you look at things, so remember to take a bird's eye view, take life higher, and go where the wind takes you!
