This evenings balloon ride was quite challenging from a pilots point of view and a real bonus for are passengers, so I am going to jot down my thoughts as I flew, oh I,m Robert by the way. We are flying from Werrington Sports Centre, Peterborough this evening and have ten very keen and enthusiast passengers to fly. The wind is a little quicker than our forecasters had briefed running at between 10 and 12 knots on the surface the air was very stable with the visibility beyond 25 miles. Our passengers were thou rally briefed prior to inflation. I knew with the wind at this speed inflating the balloon is always a real handful. As the wind starts to play with the balloon canopy treating it a bit like a sail on a yacht, until you get the balloon fully pressurised, getting the balloon airborne in a good breeze is always the hard bit, the flight and landing are all pretty straight forward. At 7.10 p.m. I had to balloon ready to go passengers in. Throttles on the stoppers and go. The power from the Stratus propane burners burners is immense; it's good to fly with the best kit available. We ascent up to 1,500 feet and we are travelling at 23 knots up towards Crowland. Once out in the Fens I always descent low to see what the surface speed and direction is, always easy to do out hear as its sparsely populated and no livestock. At 200 feet we are moving at 14 knots so we are going cover quite a bit of ground. As we approach Cowbit I can see our crew waiting on the Spalding road but still now where sensible to land. A few fields of harvested oilseed rape but most of the wheat fields are still standing. One major tip when flying a hot air balloon is that you need the good will of the farming community to allow you to retrieve your balloon. The golden rule with a cherry on top is: whatever you do DO NOT land in a farmers crop, its his livelihood and does not go down well if you pull that stunt. Once we pass Spalding the land is very fertile and the cropping changes to valuable root crops such as cabbages daffodils and other exotic crops, most of which have not been harvested. I make three careful approaches to land now very low at 100 feet but either the fields are to small (we need a big one at this speed) or the proximity to power cables is too close, so we press on. I also notice from the GPS are speed has also increased. After one hour ten minutes in the air we have passed Weston hills and are heading up to the A17 I spot two fields of cut hay two miles to our front with access from a small C road. At this speed we need a very, very precise approach that does take focus and concentration. Our passengers who have been chatting no stop can now see the field and are in their secure landing positions, all now very quite. I edge the hot air balloon ever lower at 40 feet a minute descent we clear some farm building and two sets of wires and have the field on line. The first field has large round bales in it so we overfly that one the second field is empty. We clear the hedge by 10 feet and I glance at the GPS 15 knots. I reach up to the rapid deflation system and hand over hand a pull with vigour. Touch down, no bounce just drag over nearly 75 metres we pull to a holt. That was the quickest one I've done this year I thought, feeling rather pleased with myself. Our passengers were also on quite a high. By the time are crew arrived and paked up we had run out of daylight, so we served our champagne not to a glorious Lincolnshire sunset but in the headlights of a Land Rover defender.

A sunrise balloon flight over Norfolk and Norwich is always a pleasure, quite honestly the best time of day. The only down side is our meet time is 6.00 a.m. We have a very gentle launch from Mattishall Golf Club and fine us drifting on a steady breeze from the southwest. We are soon overhead East Tuddenham and heading up to the north side of the city of Norwich. So a call to air traffic control at Norwich airport to let them know of our location. We start to climb higher and ascend to 3,500 feet. As in the area of Ringland Hills there are herds of outdoor pig units of which we do not want to disturb. From the balloon basket at this height pretty much all of Norfolk can be seen. All the way from Kings Lynn across to Lowestoft in Suffolk. The Norfolk Broads always look so beautiful at this time of the morning with the sun climbing from the east. We pass overhead Felthorpe and start our descent, now down to 700 feet we spot a number of stubble fields east of the village of Horsford. After an hour in the air we touch down and await our crew to locate us. They do take a little while as we have landed behind a wood in dead ground. OS maps are shuffled grid references given and within no time our crew Rob and Peter are soon with us. Simply a good quality morning flight.

This evening we greeted our balloon ride passengers at Wensum Valley hotel and Golf Club. The wind was quite slack with a gentle drift coming from the southeast. The forecast was for a strengthening sea breeze to develop so we pressed on to get the balloon aloft without delay. Once above 1000 feet all of the east coast and indeed the fine city of Norwich in clear view from our stable platform. The cathedral and castle are prominent landmarks and always provide an excellent photo opportunity. The Norfolk Broads start to shimmer in the evening's sun and to our north the coastline from Cromer round to Great Yarmouth are well defined. Our balloon trip takes us away from Wensum Valley and towards Lenwade with the ultimate heading south of Reepham. Then the wind starts to change, for a brief momement we are becalmed. The wind increases from the northwest and we are travelling back to Taverham at 17 knots. We contour the tree line to the south of Longwater and look at landing speed now down to 10 knots. Nowhere really suitable so we keep low close to the tree line and down towards Costessey golf course. Our hot air balloon is now behind and below the ridge and the wind drops down to a very manageable 4 knots and we gently touch down adjacent to the golf club in a small grass field. This proved to be a very interesting balloon ride but not quite what we had expected, but that's ballooning I guess !!

Our balloon ride today enabled us to view the historic county of Suffolk. The wind was coming in from the northwest so Thetford Rugby club would be the ideal launch location. A telephone call to RAF Lakenheath informed them of our intentions and the American controllers gave us clearance to transit their busy airspace. We were airborne at 7.10 p.m. and climbed up to 4,500 feet picking up a steady 20 knots. This is ideal as for the first twenty minutes of the flight there is a high density of outdoor livestock beneath us, so at this altitude it will prevent any disturbance on the ground. At this altitude we can see Ipswich docks and Sizewell power station. As we pass to the west of Honington we start to descend down to 2,000 feet. We can easily view the town of Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket. Now overhead Baringham we spot a fallow field to our front and gently land in the parish of Hepworth after one hour ten minutes in the air. Our crew quickly obtain permission to retrieve the balloon and the farmer and his family join our passengers with a glass of champagne, enjoying the view of a Suffolk summer sunset.

This morning was a wonderful opportunity to view the city of Norwich and the Norfolk Broads from a hot air balloon. We launched from Mattishall golf club and quickly climbed out to 2,000 feet. It was a stunning morning with pristine views out to the coast. Our track was taking us to the north of Norwich at about 20 knots. A quick call to Norwich air traffic control on 119.35 MHz to inform them of our transit of their airspace. As we pass overhead Taverham the balloon descends to 1,000 feet our track then turns to a westerly heading with the wind speed down to 14 knots. From the balloon basket we keep a listening watch on the airports frequency and watch the first lift of helicopters taking the oilrig workers out across the North Sea. We then descend again to 500 feet as we approach the Norfolk Broads. Wroxham and Hoveton are two connected villages, split by the River Bure and are a beautiful sight from the air. With still no suitable landing in sight we press on over Wroxham and Hoveton broad. We are now in open countryside and are flying at 100 feet. Our ground crews has things well in hand and are to our front coming along the Neatishaed road. They are on the radio explaining there is a field suitable to land to our front. Passengers are then briefed to stow their cameras and adopt landing positions the hot air balloon touches down in the parish of Horning. With the balloon packed away and on its trailer we toasted our flight in the traditional manner.

Every year there are certain balloon flights that really do stick in your mind and this evening was certainly on of those. We greeted our passengers at Mattishall Golf Club. The wind on the surface was going to take us south slowly towards the town of Wymondham. We always extract highly detailed forecasts prior to every balloon trip and this evening at height the wind was flowing in the opposite direction with more speed. However we would need to fly high, very high. With a flight of this caliber you need consensus from the passengers they are happy for this to take place, everyone was very keen. At 500 feet we were barley moving at 3 knots, a radio call to Norwich Air Traffic Control requesting to ascend to 7,500 feet was made. The reply came back ‘ yes you have clearance to climb to FL75. Stratus burners on and the balloon is heated we start our climb at 500 feet per minute. Eyes now on the GPS system at 2,000 we are virtually stationary! We keep climbing passing 2,500 we start to turn towards Norwich at 10 knots. At 5,000 feet heading Taverham 16 knots. We finish the climb at 7,500 feet now heading north at 23 knots towards Blickling and the north Norfolk coast. Norwich ATC call us on the radio to inform that a sea breeze has developed and the surface wind is now coming from the east, so we now know our direction will change again when we descend into the surface layer. The view was to say the least quite something. From Kings Lynn, Morston through to the Norfolk Broads with ships out on the North Sea all were well defined. As we approach Blickling we start our descent and at 800 feet turn to the left some 100 degrees. We are now travelling towards the attractive market town of Reepham. We fly over the town centre to waves from the locals sitting outside the Kings Arms and a large group of very excited children who have now decided to give chase on their bicycles. We land on a cut hay field in the parish of Reepham after one hour and 35 minutes in the air. A truly wonderful end to the day.