The flying part of ballooning is actually the easiest aspect of the sport. Yes it takes a certain amount of skill to operate a giant bag of fabric on top of an oversized laundry basket filled with pressurised gas that you ignite above your head to keep it in the sky, but compared to the other factors associated with ballooning, it still remains the easy part.

There are loads of other things to sort out before you even get to fly, such as the weather, crew, insurance, yearly inspections, fuel and a suitable launch site.

Due to the size of a balloon a reasonably decent space is needed. Ideally one sheltered from the worst of the elements, in a good location to allow you to fly in any wind speed or direction, one that doesn’t cost a fortune (or ideally anything) to use and one where the locals don’t mind you pitching up at silly o’clock with a giant fan and flamethrower.

We have been lucky over the years to work with some amazing landowners; this year we added one more to the list with Billing Aquadrome. Now owned and managed by Meadow Bay the park has had a huge investment and is going from strength to strength.

A few e-mails earlier in the year led us to a meeting with the park manager and we discussed the possibility of launching our balloons from their site. We were given a guided tour and permission to use five different areas of the park, all at no cost on the basis it adds a little excitement for residents and holiday makers to get to see a balloon or two launching on a lovely Summers eve.

We like to give back where we can so we arranged with the site team to host a little tethered display for the holiday makers where, weather permitting we would take some of them on short, tethered rides to get a taste of what ballooning was about. The date was set for Saturday the 26^th of July and as usual, the weather looked awful, high winds dominated the forecast and looked to be picking up as the evening went on.

However, Billing has two advantages over other launch sites, firstly, it is sat in a bowl, meaning it sits lower than the rest of the town which is great for wind shelter but not so great when it rains. Secondly, many areas of the park have rows of very tall and very thick trees. Due to this we were able to find a spot in the park whereby we were nearly completely sheltered from the wind.

So, after a quick setup, inflation and a test run with the crew we were in a position where we could tether safely. We had the odd gust come through but even that didn’t effect things a great deal, thus we were able to put on a great show, and we took between sixty to seventy happy holidaymakers in the balloon at no cost to them from us or Billing. We managed two hours in total and the time flew by, literally!

The team had a wonderful time and the feedback from those that joined us in the balloon or just watched from the sidelines was brilliant. We are looking forward to making more memories at Billing in the near future.

Thank you to the team at Billing Aquadrome and Meadow Bay for supporting the team and allowing us to utilise the site. Here’s to many years of happy flying.

If you fancy finding out more about Billing Aquadrome and what the new and improved park offers, check them out on their website. https://meadowbay.com/billingaquadrome/