This is a quickly-compiled page just intended for friends and those who
shared the flight with Simon, not a demonstration of Web interface design.
I welcome extra images for this page, as long as you are capable of
delivering them in JPEG format with the size of each file not exceeding
100K (most of the ones here are much more heavily compressed than that)
and in 640 by 480 resolution or less. You can find out how to contact me
or the organisers of this flight at the end of this page.
ACROSS WARWICKSHIRE BY BALLOON!
12th July 2000; 7:29 pm, British Summer Time
This collection of pictures was taken on a Ballon flight organised by
Heart of England Ballons, starting out from Cross Lanes Farm, at Walcote,
near Alcester, and heading East-North-East to Warwick, skirting Stratford
upon Avon and crossing the M40 motorway and Grand Union Canal en route.
To keep the time to load the page down to a bearable minimum, I have split
the collection of graphics and text into several sections, each of which
can be loaded and viewed as a separate page. This should also make it easier
to add pictures when some of the others who went on the flight get in touch
with me with their own images.
Lift-off
Companion
Sky Views
Landmarks
Landing
Finale
Our pilot in the rainbow balloon was Roger Sanderson, who organised the
balloons spectacularly used in the first Batman film, and appeared as
a Joker (with a pointy beard) into the bargain. Here he looks more like
Biggles....
After two weeks on the film-set he collected two pay packets - one for
acting and one for his technical contributions - and promptly spent the
money on (of course) a balloon of his own!
Having flown over this area for quite a few years,
we carried a map with certain fields coded in two colours - to mark
those which we'd been asked not to land in, and those which we'd been
told definitely NOT to land in, on any account! The recovery vehicle
carries a bottle of Scotch as a reward for the owner of the land where
we touchdown, and the owner is also offered a flight if they want one.
The EC directives about 'setaside' land have been a boon to balloonists.
Roger's enthusiasm and professionalism and willingness to explain put
us at ease and made the flight far more comfortable and entertaining than
it might otherwise have been. Thanks also go to Martin, mission control
in the Land Rover, who kept us in the ground at the beginning and followed
us by road till we landed, collecting the ballon and ferrying us back to
the launch site to rejoin our own vehicles.
Flight organised by Heart of England Balloons
(hoebinfo@ukballons.com)
Heartfelt thanks to my partner Chris Lyle for imaginatively and generously
giving me this flight as a Christmas present!
Copyright © 2000 Simon N Goodwin
(simon at clay dot demon.co.uk)
