Hard Landing

BY MICHAEL J HOWARD

The mist lay low on the fields and in the East a perfectly round weak yellow sun attempted to rise above the unkempt hedgerows. As I climbed out of my car, parked close to the open gateway, I shivered as the chill of the early morning contrasted sharply with the cosy warmth of my heated vehicle in which I had been cosseted during my hour long journey.

In the centre of the field lay the hot air balloon, its multi coloured envelope lolloping to one side of the wicker basket like a clown awakening from a deep sleep. One of the three men attending to the equipment had been alerted by the sound of my approaching vehicle and he had turned to face me. He waved to greet me and beckoned for me to approach him.

Close up, the hot air balloon looked enormous. Whilst the top of the envelope still lay on the dew laden grass the ‘business end’ was gaping wide open ready to accept the next blast of hot air. The roar of the propane burner startled me by its intensity and as I watched the hot yellow flames leaping from it, I marvelled that the fabric did not catch alight. Each ‘puff’ of hot air slowly inflated the huge balloon so that, within half an hour it was standing upright. although still rather unstable. It swayed backwards and forwards like a demented demon springing to life. It took another half hour of intermittent heating before the envelope gained its true spherical shape and the apex of the balloon finally permanently pointed skywards.

I had not been idle in the meantime. Having returned to my car and donned a quilted jacket and a cap, I brought the food hamper to the launch area. I had been informed that once the balloon was ready to go we would be off in a flash. I busied myself helping to attend to the restraining guide ropes as the canopy grew larger by the minute and threatened to begin its ascent without us. Finally the moment arrived. In a somewhat disorderly fashion myself, the other passenger and the balloon pilot tumbled into the basket and with a series of discordant shouted commands the ground crew let go of the final tether and we rose silently into the morning sky.

We rose sharply at first. The sun had burned off the early morning mist and now its warming rays were helping to keep our balloon full of hot air. A couple of sharp blasts of the propane burner and we rose steadily to around one thousand five hundred feet above the ground. The silence was absolute, which came as a complete surprise to me. Apart from the odd blast from the burner, there was no ambient noise at all. We slowly drifted West propelled by the early morning land breeze. Our Pilot engaged us in conversation while attending to the myriad small adjustments he had to make to keep us at a steady height. The other passenger and I fired off a series of questions at him which our pilot readily answered.

Looking downwards, I was amazed at the detail I was able to observe. Travelling at ground level by car or train, your view out of the window changes rapidly. Even during a flight in a small aircraft or helicopter, your speed over the ground is such that

objects appear and disappear from your line of sight in seconds. Leaning over the edge of the chest high side of the balloon basket, I was able to concentrate on minute detail. As we passed over a church steeple I could make out the slight twist in its ancient structure and almost count the slate tiles on its sloping sides. It was a wonder of infinite detail unobservable from any other perspective.

Pangs of hunger suddenly struck me and I reached down for the picnic hamper. The three of us opened the foil wrappers and enjoyed warm bacon sandwiches washed down with scalding hot tea from my Thermos flask. All the time the balloon drifted slowly over the open countryside, its silent progress causing no alarm to the cows and sheep grazing peacefully in the fields below us.

After an hour or so, quite out of the blue, our pilot announced that we must soon ‘put down’. He began searching along our projected flight path for a suitable landing site. He pinned his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the horizon. Myself and my fellow passenger were suddenly aware that the balloon was rapidly loosing height. We skimmed over the roofs of a cluster of farm buildings. Our pilot gave the balloon envelope one final and desperate blast from the burner as the propane supply was now almost exhausted.

We were rapidly approaching a small hamlet with little open space available for a successful landing. Directly ahead of us lay a small copse of mature deciduous trees in full leaf. Our pilot shouted a warning to hold on tight. We hit the top few branches of the first tree really hard, the basket tipping over at an alarming angle. We all clung on for dear life. The reaction caused the balloon to lift and we bounced over the crown of the next two or three trees. The initial impact had caused a large rent in the fabric of the balloon and the loud hissing of escaping air signalled the abrupt end of our flight. We came to an an ungainly halt in the bosom of a Beech tree.

And that’s how I ended up, up a tree on my Sixtieth birthday!