The team are now recovering from their third event in a row, this time the 2025 Silverstone Festival and wow what an event this was. Silverstone wasn’t initially on the team’s event list for the year but our friends at the Bristol Balloon Collectors contacted us earlier in the year with a unique proposition.

To give some context Bristol Balloon Collectors are a not-for-profit group who do literally what their name says, collect balloons in Bristol! Setup by brothers Dan and Liam Whitelock and now ran by a dedicated group of volunteers, the collectors have rescued dozens of balloons over the years. Our team donated two envelopes to the group several years ago. The collection features many vintage balloons such as Thomas the Tank Engine, Rupert the Bear, and the feature of this blog, Mr Bibendum the Michelin Tyres mascot.

Bristol Balloon Collectors have an agreement with Michelin that they can care for and occasionally display Mr Bibendum in return for him being taken to Silverstone each year for the nightglows, for the 2025 event they asked us to operate him on their behalf to which we happily agreed.

The plan for the weekend was to fly our round balloon G-TIMX Kingfisher in the mornings and then glow Mr Bibendum in the evenings. Jamie collected the balloon the day before the event and with the overall weather picture looking favourable the team braced for another busy weekend of heavy lifting and flying.

Friday morning dawned a little grey but with perfect flying conditions and five teams set up in the camping field next to Silverstone Racetrack. Trainee pilot Liam Menzies led the first flight which was by far his best yet. Liam completed the whole flight with verbal instruction only from Jamie. Jamie didn’t even have to touch the burners once. Better yet he landed the balloon two fields away from the local Super Sausage Café where the team made their final landing for breakfast once the balloon was packed away!

With breakfast done, the teams attention was turned to the 380KG lump of fabric sat in the back of the van we brought back from Bristol, Mr Bibendum. Built in the late nineties by Thunder and Colt Balloon’s, Mr Bibendum was one of several balloons commissioned by Michelin. The balloons toured the world for several years on a highly successful campaign after which they all went off to different homes. The balloon worked hard in its commercial life and is sadly no longer airworthy, but it can be displayed.

Special shape balloons are incredibly unique beasts, and each one is vastly different, rather than wait until the glow and try to work things out in the dark the team spent a couple of hours getting to grips with the balloon in the hot afternoon sun. We even managed to stand him up for a few minutes to get a feel for how he handled. After packing up and sealing his Velcro panels we set him up in the van, so his flying wires were attached to hooking points ready for the evening for a quick setup.

The forecast for the glow was gusty but as Michelin were a main sponsor for the event, we wanted to make an effort to stand him up. All the other teams mucked in to help, and before long we had Bibendum stood up, although sadly only for a few minutes due to the winds closing the mouth. In his old age Bibendum is very porous and he does not hold the air very well. Once he was down, we had a whole army of balloonists to help us pack away and he was soon in the van ready for day two.

Day two dawned with perfect ballooning conditions, Jamie flew two family members of the Avanti gas supplier who kindly agreed to help on Bibendum for the weekend. G-TIMX was first out of the field and made a lovely hour and twenty-minute flight into the Buckingham countryside. Everything aligned to make this the best flight of 2025 to date. Perfect weather, direction, passengers, landing, and landowner. Once we were packed up, we refuelled and had some well-earned rest ready for the second nightglow.

This time around the conditions were more favourable but the wind direction meant Bibendum would be facing away from the crowd. It was suggested that the balloon be setup back to front to compensate for this and with permission from the team at Bristol Balloon Collectors that is what we did. This time around everything aligned and we stood up Mr Bibendum to the delight of the crowd, alongside a number of other balloons. We managed to keep him up for a good while until the conditions deteriorated and all the balloons were pulled down for safety. After another quick pack up it was time for bed ready for day three.

This time around Jamie let fellow pilot and friend Howard Cusden fly G-TIMX with Molly Mae Ballooning team members Liam Twort and James Butcher. This was the first time Jamie had retrieved his own balloon, and it made for a unique change of pace.

Howard and the team had an awesome flight with an easy landing and pack up. After the flight, the team had breakfast and then waited for the decision on the final glow. Sadly, the forecast had really deteriorated, and the glow was cancelled. The team were gutted that we wouldn’t be able to lug around 380KG of dead weight in the dark, so we made up for it and got Bibendum out again in the daylight and repacked him ready for his trip home.

That brought an end to our weekend and our first event at Silverstone. The ballooning aspect of the event is run by Paul and Carole Mackley from the Purple Rain Balloon Team. It is a very relaxed but well ran and safe event and we hope to attend again. We managed three flights and three inflations of Bibendum overall.

Mr Bibendum is now safely back in storage with the Bristol Balloon Collectors and our team now have a week off before our next event in September.

The team want to thank the organisers at Silverstone for their impressive hospitality and event, Paul, Carole, and the Purple Rain Team, all the teams who helped with Michelin, Jack from Avanti and the Bristol Balloon Collectors.

Check out the Bristol Balloon Collectors here –https://bristolballooncollectors.weebly.com/