In a balloon over Audlem

An Audlem resident, John Evans, has sent us this description of a balloon flight over the village together with some nice photographs – possibly a last view of some of the surrounding fields before they disappear under new housing estates!

My wife gave me a Virgin Balloon Flight voucher for Christmas and after 4 abortive attempts, cancelled due to bad weather, I secured the last space on a flight from Hack Green scheduled for the evening of 20th August. In the event, the take-off location was changed to Whitchurch Rugby Club due to wind conditions.

Ballooning is obviously entirely dependent on weather conditions and I discovered I was quite lucky to get a flight at only my fifth attempt, one person had been trying for 3 years!

The basket and balloon are enormous, taking 16 passengers in total plus the pilot and it took about an hour to prepare the balloon for flight after which we took off safely and headed in an easterly direction.

The pilot told us that we reached an altitude of about 1000 ft and travelled at about 10 knots but he reduced height and speed as we approached Audlem.

We had excellent views of the marina and canal and then of the village as we passed over Little Heath and co-incidentally my garden (the lawn looked really patchy!). On a sunny evening the village, with all it's green trees, looked a lovely place to live as the photos hopefully show.

Once beyond the village the pilot began to look for a place to land. Finding a field with no animals or crops near to a road (to allow the recovery team access) is quite a challenge at this time of year.

We eventually landed in a grassy field adjacent to Checkley Lane after a flight lasting about an hour. The recovery vehicle quickly found us and reclaimed the balloon and basket and a mini bus took the passengers back to Whitchurch for a celebratory glass of champagne.

All in all, a once in a lifetime experience not to be missed all thanks to my generous wife.

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