Bloxham Broadsheet

Some time ago, I won a Hot-Air Balloon flight in a raffle. After a number of attempts had been cancelled because of high winds, I eventually managed to take off on Monday 17th May. It was a beautiful sunny evening with very little wind. The take off point was in Bloxham School playing field next to the Dewey Sports Centre, which is only about 200 yards from where I live. This meant I was able to get lots of photos of our house and Bloxham village.

The six people who were going to go on the flight met at 6.30 p.m. There were two people from “The Ballooning Business” who organised the flight: the pilot, and the Land-Rover driver who chased us and picked us up after we had landed. We helped them lay the balloon out flat on the grass, and then two of us held the mouth of the balloon open while a motorised fan blew cold air into it to inflate it. Once the balloon was inflated, lying on its side, the basket in which we were going to travel was laid on its side, so that the burners could blast hot air into the balloon, with a mighty roar, and flames about 4 feet long. (The flames do not get anywhere near the balloon fabric, but we were told that the bottom of the balloon was made of non-inflammable fabric, which was reassuring.)

As the air began to heat up, the balloon lifted up and dragged the basket into a vertical position, at which point we got in. There were two compartments for three people, and another compartment for the pilot and gas cylinders. The pilot turned the burners on full, and suddenly we found ourselves going smoothly up, and the take-off field receded, and the people waving to us got smaller and smaller.
The wind was very light, and we drifted very slowly across the village, gaining height all the time. It is difficult recognising everything from the air, but I soon found our house, Rosebank, and got some good photos from the air. We went in a south-westerly direction, past the church and across the Adderbury road, with good views of the new houses, the caravan site, and Smith’s scrap-yard! We went higher and higher, and reached 4000 feet, before we started to descend. We could see Banbury, Bodicote, Adderbury and even King’s Sutton; also Deddington, South Newington, and Hook Norton. We spent 20 minutes crossing the disused airfield near Barford, and came to very gentle touch down just outside the airfield perimeter fence. We had only travelled about two and a half miles in just under an hour!
When we landed, we waited a minute or two before one of the passengers got out (so that the balloon did not take off again when the basket got lighter!), and he pulled a rope to bring the top of the balloon down so that it was lying on the ground. We then climbed out and squashed the balloon up into a narrow straight line on the grass. We then started feeding the balloon from the end into an absurdly small bag. It had a will of its own, and we had to sit on it to squash the air out of the end of the balloon in order to get it into the bag. This was then winched on to the trailer as the Land-Rover driver had managed to find our landing site. When the basket had been similarly loaded, they opened the champagne, and we all had a glass (including the farmer who owned the field, who had appeared on the scene!) We were also presented with certificates, to say we had flown. We were then driven back to the launch site, and went home having had a most enjoyable experience.
I can recommend the trip. The Ballooning Business telephone No is: 01604 768617
Alan Griffin