Webman Fly's

For my 50th Birthday (last September) my wife purchased for me a Gift Voucher that entitled me to a Balloon flight from Adventure Balloons.  She knows that it was something I had always wanted to do.  The flight was originally scheduled for the actual day (which was a Saturday), but due to rainy weather conditions that afternoon it had to be cancelled.  To cut a long story short, after several re-arrangements it eventually took place on Saturday 14th July. 

Click on any photo for a larger image.

I was really hoping that we would, of course, fly across Old Basing and I should be able to get a birds eye view of our local landmarks (and everyone's garden).  But unfortunately the wind conditions meant that we veered a little too far west.  However, we passed over some bits of Basingstoke that I thought you might be interested in.

The meeting point for take off was at Micheldever.  We were to meet at 6:30 in the evening, but a number of us were there well before then.  The balloon arrived on the back of a trailer that was pulled by a Land Rover.  Our pilot was Kim and Nick was the "ground crew" who would be following us while we were in the air.  There was quite a lot of preparation work to be done before we'd be up-up-and-away, and everyone was tasked with something.  We needed to get the basket off the trailer, unfurl the balloon itself, start the inflation process with cold air, and then start replacing the cold air with hot air.  A separate gas canister was used for this, which was unloaded just  before take off.  And of course there was that all important safety briefing.

We had to learn to get in the "ready position" and the "landing positions" when told.  There was to be no talking during landing, because Kim needed to concentrate on what he was doing and was not to be distracted.

Take off was around about 7:15, and the picture above was taken soon after leaving the ground.  The playing field was where we had taken off from.    There was a slight breeze that evening and so we were soon up and moving along.  This second picture, to the right, shows the weather conditions, and as you can see there was a little high cloud.

Micheldever is close to Popham airfield, and there were a few light aircraft that we had to negotiate.  But apparently, balloons take priority over the aircraft.  So, they had to get out of our way!!  Taking off was very gentle, it was as they say in the brochure.  You don't feel as though you are taking off, it is more like the ground is falling away.  Someone very kindly took a photograph of me to prove that yes, I was really there!

Ok, now for some pictures of what we saw.  On the left is what I think is Oakley village, although I don't know it that well so can't identify any of the landmarks.  And on the right is a part of what I believe to the new development at Kempshot or it could be Hatch Warren maybe!! Anyone got any ideas?

On the left is Down Grange sports complex.  As I have been there once or twice, I think I am right here.  On the right are some of the factories and offices around the Houndmills area of the town.  You can just make out where I work.

We passed just to the west of the Town Centre, so we had some good views of the development of apartments that we have been blessed with over the last few years.  To the right is a picture that shows the extent of the of Victory Hill development.

The last picture I have is of a building called  Isis House in Reading Road (next door to MFI).  I worked here for over 10 years for a company called Telematics, and working for Telematics was the reason for me moving to Basingstoke all those years ago.  This is the last picture I took as Kim was telling us to stow away our cameras etc as we would soon be landing.  His intended target was a field to the left of the A33 to Reading in the vicinity of the Chineham incinerator.  However as we got closer it became apparent that we were going to miss it.

The next plan was to land in Sherfield on Loddon.  But again we were to miss the target.  Kim was trying not to land in a field of crops, and there were pylons and trees to take in to consideration too.  Well, we were now following the A33 and pretty soon we were over Wellington Country Park, and as they are not balloon friendly we couldn't land there either.  We passed over a concert that was going on in the park, and as our balloon had Happy Birthday written on the side, some of the crowd down below started singing it to us.  Hey, was the concert that good?

Once we had cleared the park, Kim had to set us down in a field of barley after all.  But as he knew the land owner, things we going to be all right.  Landing was just a couple of bounces.  And there was minimal damage to the crop.  So our 1 hour flight had turned into 1 hour 45 minutes, but nobody was complaining.  Nick tuned up with the Land Rover, and the process of deflating and folding the balloon away started.  This was quite exhausting I can tell you.  But eventually it was all packed away, and we were sipping champagne and receiving our certificates.  We were brought back to the take off site by Mikes Travel all feeling that we had had a good time.  I eventually got home a 11:15.  and had felt that I had really had an adventure.

This is the In-Flight photo that was taken soon after take off.  Who got out to take the picture?