Equipment

Balloons consist of three main parts, the envelope (the lifting part of the balloon), burner and the basket, and because they don't have to match many people including ourselves start off with a mixture of makes in the equipment purchased. So its probably a good idea to give you a brief history of the equipment we began with and how we've improved and updated over the years.

We'll begin with the envelope, which is the most visible part of the balloon. Our first envelope was purchased in 1994 from Zebedee* Balloon List as part of a package which included a basket and burner. That envelope was probably our most interesting item for some time, it was made by the Airtour Balloon company which was run by husband and wife Bob and Carol Howes. It had a capacity of 77,000 cubic feet, and when new was capable of carrying a pilot and two passengers. Technically it was a model AH77B, but the envelope was also interesting as it was the personal balloon of Bob Howes and was basically used a demonstration model: it also carried his own personal 'out of sequence' registration G-BOBH. The call sign he gave the envelope 'Gloworm' was still used by us until the very end.

All envelopes have a life span, and unfortunately G-BOBH was nearing the end of it's life expectancy after giving us a few years of wonderful flights. It was downgraded during one if it's C of A's and was from that time only rated to carry the pilot and one passenger, it still served us for a time but it was inevitable that we'd have to think about replacing it. Sadly we parted with G-BOBH in 2003 and purchased our next envelope. The good news is that G-BOBH will still be flying, albeit probably only on a tether as it was purchased by someone in the midlands who intends using it (along with other envelopes) at fetes and displays.

Our replacement envelope was a Cameron O type and has a capacity of 105,000 cubic feet. It was manufactured by Cameron Balloons of Bedminster (Bristol) and carries the registration G-BSNZ and we gave it the call sign 'Firefly' which needless to say is why our balloon team is called the same. We still have this envelope and it is regularly flown, but again it's an envelope which has been downgraded to take a lower weight limit, so we've taken to using another Cameron envelope (G-BOTK) also an O105, which is on semi-permanent loan to us and this is used more than Firefly at the moment.