Balloon start in thick fog | |
- The balloon rises like an elevator, our ears crack tremendous
- Suddenly glistening sun, the balloon hovers directly above the thick fog looking like cotton candy and throws his shadow on the sea of fog
- More and more balloons apeare out from the fog sea
- Our balloon rises rapidly, drifting onto the Dachstein rock ridge
- Our pilot must heat the gas burner properly, the GPS altimeter indicates 3350 m above sea level
- Over us only the wafer-thin, in the sunlight glowing balloon silk
- Despite the large altitude in the wicker basket prevails a pleasant warmth, the air in the balloon envelope is indeed about 90-120 degrees hot
- The competition balloons are rising rapidly higher and move up to about 6000 m altitude flying over the Alps and landing in Italy near Venice, thank God I'm not in there !
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Soaring high | |
- On board there is an eerie silence, only disturbed by the short roar of the burner or radio instructions to the ride-on floor crew
- We feel no wind because the balloon glides with the wind
- The altimeter shows now 3500 meters above the sea. No dirty airplane window clouds the magnificent view from the balloon to the snowy deeply carved mountain valleys
- The air is so clear that you can guesse on the horizon the curvature of the earth
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Searching for a safe landing site | |
- gently sliding over a snowy mountain forest downto Ramsau village
- suddenly the wind direction changes and our wicker basket clips the pine treetops - a dangerous situation
- but our Russian pilot keeps cool, strong fire bursts from the gas burners let the balloon quickly rise again
- hopefully is enough balloon gas in the bottles ?
- when the balloon gas runs out, it can get very uncomfortable and extreme dangerous - the hot air in the balloon envelope cools rapidly down, the balloon then decreases at 5 m / sec, as fast as a military parachute
- Search new landing site, but anywhere high-voltage power lines, houses, roads, fences ?
- The balloon shadow moves over the tree tops of the pine forest
- then smooth Councillor landing in the deep snow on a meadow - succeeded
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Wet Happy graduation ceremony | |
- fast the balloon envelope is stowed and then we go to strait on to a pub ...
- Hot Air balloon baptism by burn a ringlet, fire extinguish with french champagne
- Nobility title: Count Erich of Ramsau, the quaint knight of the air - it was my very first Hot Air Balloon flight :o))
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