Adam and Tiffy

Finally, after several aborted attempts, the weather was finally clear enough and the wind calm enough for our much anticipated hot air ballooning expedition! We had an evening flight last night with Magical Mystery Flights and had a great time during our hour-long aerial tour of Chester County. It was a gentle trip, and there’s nothing quite like the calm and quiet of the open sky.

We covered a distance of about 10 miles. Here’s a map courtesy of Yahoo Maps. There were a few turns here and there due to changes in the wind currents at different altitudes, but it was a pretty straight shot from Embreevillie to West Chester. We’ve put a lot of pictures of the entire experience in our gallery.

That experience included the initial inflation of the balloon, which is rather interesting. After positioning the basket sideways and adjusting some ropes, the pilot and his assistant were ready to get the envelope, or balloon, inflated. I volunteered to help them roll out the 370 pounds of polyester that make up the envelope. While the assistant, Kevin, held onto the top of the envelope to keep it lined up, Frank (another guest) and I held the mouth of the envelope open while the pilot used a large gas-powered fan to blow normal air into the envelope. Once it was almost completely inflated, he turned on the propane jets and heated the air to about 500 degrees, which cause the balloon to lift up and the basket to go upright. Then we all jumped in an took off!

The take-off was very subtle. Our pilot, David Allen, gave us a great demonstration of the amount of control that’s available in adjusting the height that a balloon is flying. We started out from the ground and he moved us upward into a stand of trees. I was actually close enough to a branch to pick off a leaf! As we moved along at about 8 mph, he lowered us into a farmer’s field and we were close enough to see strawberries — but not quite close enough to pick them.

Other things of note:

• Everybody on the ground likes to wave at people in a balloon
• When you’re in a balloon and are even a couple hundred feet above the ground, you can still carry on conversations with people on the ground
• Balloons don’t really tilt from side to side, so you can stand anywhere you want
• It’s extremely quiet up there
• A lot of people in Chester County have pools

The sky was a bit hazy, but even so, when we were at a high enough altitude, we were able to see several miles in all directions. It’s amazing how your sense of the contour of the land is so completely different when you’re able to look down from a great height. All the houses look like little models, too.

Our landing was extremely smooth. It was great fun touching down in a little neighborhood on somebody’s lawn and deflating the balloon while all the kids in the neighborhood came out to play in the basket. The folks whose lawn we landed on were very cordial and friendly and joined us for the ritual champagne toast.

We had so much fun that we have resolved to go again in the fall when we can see the beautiful change in the foliage. Come with us!