All By Myself - 26th October 2004

I think that was the name of a song.... anyway... I decided to have my first crack at doing this ballooning thing on my own. I have been ballooning for 25 years and I have never done everything on my own for a flight. So I decided that the time had come. So I drove out to the launch site on my own, inflated the balloon on my own, flew on my own, packed up on my own, rode back to collect the car on my own, and drove back and loaded up the balloon on my own. It was a completely solo flight!

It was an amazing sensation just to be able to do it all myself. Amazing sense of freedom about it all. I have posted some pictures of the exercise into the Photo Gallery.

On a seperate matter the flying season here in Asutralia is coming to a close, albeit a premature one for me as I managed to break my ankle playing sport. The 6 week down time will be used wisely to think of what I can do next with the balloon and plan the next fun flight.

Flights Galore - 7th August 2004

The balloon has been busy flying lately and has now completed its test phase of its flying requirement for its Certiicate of Airworthiness. The testing phase is 10 hours.

I took the bin and balloon up to the World Championships in mildura and did a couple of flights in the practice week and a number of ththers for the crowd which all went down very well. The balloon is a big attention getter and the media love it. I think it made coverage on all major TV networks in Australia, generally followed by a statement saying I was mad to be flying it :)

Last weekend I took it out to see how long it would fly for. I had 3 10 gallon tanks (worthingtons) onboard which equates to about110 litres of usable fuel. I flew for exactly 3 hours and used 86 litres of fuel. This equates to about 0.5L per minute which I am very happy with. I still had about 50 minutes of Fuel onboard but I had become a little bored so I landed :)

The bin will be at most Australian balloon events over the next year as I start to get some payback for the work in building it. At AUD$3152, it must be the cheapest aircraft flying in the country!

There are some new pics up in the photo gallery area for you all to look at.

I cant tell you how rewarding it is to fly something you have built. There is an overwhelming sense of pride everytime I see the balloon and I would recommend buiding your ow balloon to anyone who even slightly intrigued by the idea. Its Awesome!