Team Pilot Jamie has been working towards his commercial pilots license this year, he has attained his group A license already allowing him to fly advertising balloons and is now working towards adding a passenger carrying rating. To do this he needed to complete a proficiency check with a commercial operator which would act as a recommendation to allow him to do a formal “base and line” check with an examiner.

Before we carry on this particular flight report, let’s roll the clocks back to 2012 for a short while. Jamie received a random telephone call one day from a young chap called Matt Rate who had been involved in ballooning for most of his life and had made a couple of on off attempts to get his licence and was now set on wanting to get it all finished. Matt asked Jamie if he would be willing to assist him in getting his license, which would involve some flying instruction and the loan of kit. Jamie has always been a big advocate of getting others involved in ballooning so naturally agreed straight away. Long story short, Jamie and Matt did a number of flights together and Matt attained his license soon after. Matt then went on to attain his commercial license, flew all over the world and eventually set up his own ballooning business in Northampton where he offers exclusive balloon rides in smaller balloons alongside a wealth of other balloon related services, www.vistaballoonflights.co.uk . You can probably guess where this story is going so lets fast forward back to the present.

Thirteen years after Matt rang Jamie for help, it was Jamie ringing Matt for help who in turn kindly agreed. Matt provided a lot of useful help and guidance leading up to the proficiency check and finally the weather came right for Thursday the 24^th of July. Matt was available, as was his Cameron Z-120, after a quick message in our team group chat we soon had a team ready to go.

We had arranged to launch from the Obelisk Centre in Kingsthorpe which is a normal take off site for the team and everything seemed to be running smoothly, until we arrived that is. The site owners had forgotten that a company that specialises in dog training had booked out a portion of the site and had a group of dog owners and dogs there for the evening. The trainer, a rather angry and odious little man made his feelings of displeasure known when we arrived and called the site owners to express his concern. A simple conversation would have been sufficient, we know how balloons affect dogs, and we would have gladly found elsewhere with no fuss. Some people enjoy the drama though or maybe it’s part of the dogs training to be around excitable people. Anyway, with time ticking we needed to find an alternative launch site quickly. Thankfully the local Virgin Balloons Operator very kindly gave us permission to take off from Hanging Houghton, so we headed there. By the time we arrived he had already launched, and his team were on the way to follow. 

The next step was to get the balloon rigged and inflated, the kit was larger, and many parts configured differently to our team’s equipment but thankfully Matt was on hand to provide some guidance whilst still ensuring Jamie was doing what he needed to do. The balloon was soon together, inflated and ready to launch with just under an hour of sunlight remaining, talk about cutting it close. The balloon launched gently into the air and before Jamie could even get comfortable Matt was putting him through his paces and making him make steep approaches, practice landings and a variety of other exercises. With an equal measure of skill and luck, or rather luck and skill all went well, and a landing field was being sought out. Thankfully with Matt running a local rides business he knew the majority of the local landowners and managed to get permission to land ahead of time. A gentle landing later and the team were greeted by the landowners who then jumped in for a little hop across their field. We then deflated and packed away. Everything went well and Matt gave Jamie the green light to book his final assessment which will hopefully be soon.

No time for celebration after as Jamie had to get back to the day job the following day. 

A massive thank you to Matt Rate, Vista Balloon Flights, Virgin Balloon Flights and of course the team for making the night possible. Also, a special thank you to the angry dog trainer for the pre-flight entertainment as well.