Strap in, this is going to be a long one!

Wow, where to start, the team has had a very busy weekend, and we have managed to get a lot of positive stuff done. 

I guess the best place to start as with most things is the beginning, which brings us to Friday the 1^st of August 2025. As you may know if you follow the teams adventures, we have partnered up with the British Balloon Museum and Library to help promote them and they have kindly trusted us with G-BVBJ, one of two Maxwell House balloons. The balloon hadn’t been flown since 2018 and due to this it needed to be reinspected.

What you may not know is the team has also planned to get the original Molly Mae balloon back in the air again to be used by the team’s trainee pilots. It made sense to do the pair together and it also turned-out fellow pilot Rob Lovell needed one of his inspecting too, Rob and his uncle Martin very kindly allowed us to come to Skytech Helicopters at Sywell Aerodrome to get them done.

Now we had a plan and location, we needed an inspector. Queue Jamie doing Chris Sanger-Davies head in with messages trying to arrange a suitable date and time, the weather seemed to be playing ball for once as well and everything was agreed and set for the 1st.

The team got together in the early afternoon and after much lugging and manoeuvring of heavy bags of material we had the balloons and kit loaded into various vehicles and set off to Sywell. We were very kindly allowed by Martin to use a part of his hanger to sort the kit out which allowed us to get everything ready for Chris to start inspecting bits when he arrived. As Rob had kindly sorted out the location his balloon was done first and passed with flying colours. Rob has the beautiful ladybird balloon G-CIBN previously owned by the dearly missed Barry Newman.

Once the ladybird was all sorted it was on to Molly Mae, she was last inflated in 2024 and had been stored since then. The Molly Mae envelope is a Lindstrand 90 built in the mid 1990s and has just over 300 hours, whilst she is showing her age, she passed her inspection and will be perfect for team members Liam Goldring and Liam Twort to learn to fly on. We cannot wait to get her flying again in the next couple of weeks.

Lastly it came to G-BVBJ, Maxwell House. A standard balloon can be inspected with a cold inflation, but a special shape balloon needs to be hot inflated to pass all of the required checks. Sadly, the winds were too fast initially but were set to drop, so we did the thing that all balloonists love to do and stood in a windy field looking at the clouds.

Eventually the winds did drop enough, and Chris raced around the balloon and put it through its paces with his grab tester and other kit. Jamie then stood the balloon up and it passed its final checks meaning we can fly it in the coming weeks. The balloon is in very good condition, and everything is looking hopeful that it will fly well. Thank you again to the British Balloon Museum and Library for your trust in allowing us to look after the balloon and help raise awareness of your fantastic work. 

Now all of the balloons were inspected and packed away it was time to head home and relax for the weekend, not! Chris hadn’t just come down to the balloon inspections as pilot Jamie had also booked him for an OPC flight for his commercial license and this was set for Saturday the 2^nd of August. The weather wasn’t looking perfect but when does it ever so Jamie spent most of the evening studying the forecasts before eventually calling the flights on.

The alarm went off at 0330 for pilot Jamie who needed to pick up team member Liam Menzies and then the Cameron Z-120 rig from Vista Balloon Flights which had kindly been loaned to the team for the purpose of the exam. Flying in the balloon with Jamie were Liam Menzies, Liam Goldring and fellow pilot and friend of Jamie, Howard Cusden, and of course the examiner Chris.

We had selected the Obelisk Centre for the launch site and arrived to find it empty and void of angry dog trainers. The balloon was set up in good time and Chris was soon on site putting Jamie through his paces ensuring he had a good working knowledge of the tech log, ops manual for Vista Balloon Flights and was up to scratch on his briefings, weather and everything else. 

The balloon was inflated, checked over again and then we took off and floated across Northampton. The upper winds were fast, but the lower-level winds were lighter and variable with a massive shift left near to the ground. Chris ensured Jamie had a good handle of the balloon and made him complete a number of practice approaches and simulated emergencies. The balloon was drifting towards an area dominated by sensitive areas so a sensible grass field near to a road was selected as the final landing point after a lovely forty-minute flight.

All went well and Jamie passed the OPC which means he can now legally fly paying passengers in group A balloons as well as carry out aerial work within the same group, we hope to have some exciting projects around this in the near future. Crew member Helen Goldring also attained her sheep awareness and wrangling certification but that’s a story for another time. Everything was packed away, paperwork completed and the team enjoyed a nice breakfast with Chris before he headed home.

Now any sensible team would have ended the weekend there and had a rest, but we just love the sport too much to miss out on a good opportunity to promote ballooning.

After last week’s successful tether at Billing, we were invited back to do it again, this time with better weather and more crew. So, we spent out evening on the lovely, revamped Billing site tethering G-TIMX. We had an even bigger turnout than last time, and everyone had a lot of fun. Pilot Jamie and team member Katie Gower took turns tethering the balloon, everyone who wanted a go got one and there were loads of people both young and old left captivated and wanting to learn more. After nearly two hours we called it a night and packed away.

That brings and end to our very busy, very tiring and very VERY expensive weekend. However it is all worth it and we are going to enjoy some well earned rest before our next adventure which will be at the Bristol Balloon Fiesta where we are teaming up with MJ Ballooning to fly one of his special shapes.

A big thank you to Chris Sanger-Davies, Rob and Martin Lovell, The British Balloon Museum and Library, Vista Balloon Flights, Matt Rate, Billing Aquadrome and of course the amazing members of our team.