Report by Andy Booth - BBAC Model Balloon Officer

Stanley and Monty Bear kindly took their bigger friends with them when they went to their rather special balloon meet in Germany

Balloonists standing around in a field at 7.30 in the morning after a pilot briefing waiting for the mist to lift, so what's new?

The difference was that these were all model balloon enthusiasts who were taking part in the 19th International Brigachtaler Modelballontreffen in South West Germany, organised by the Bollings.

Forty balloon teams from ten countries had gathered at Wolterdingen to take part in the event. Despite being the only Brits there, that year, they were immediately made very welcome by the enthusiasts who had gathered from all over Europe for the event.

The 'pilots,' Monty, the well-known UK teddy bear pilot, flying a balloon called Honey Cloud and a new bear, Stan, in a balloon called Flamingo.

Monty was off like a rocket with David trying to keep up with him - there's no holding that bear when he gets going. Stan was a little more hesitant, as a PuT (Pilot Under Training). He wasn't quite certain what he was doing and was found upside down in the bottom of the basket on landing! The array of colours and designs of model balloon envelopes was amazing and even included several special shapes.

The target we were aiming for was only about three fields away, but as German fields are something like twice the size of ours it was quite some distance. This was our first experience of competitive free flying with our remote control models and we were a little apprehensive about their performance but our only problem turned out to be running fast enough to keep up with them.

We enjoyed this first flight so much that we decided to return to the launch field and have a second attempt.

After a quick meal, all 40 teams re-assembled at a local children's hospital for a nightglow. We had a wonderful reception from the children, some of whom were able to mingle with the model balloons, while others watched from windows and balconies. The organiser's wife, gave us all a bag of toys to distribute amongst the children and I think we all felt a great 'glow' of satisfaction at the children's delight. Afterwards we were entertained to supper and drinks in the hospital.

We were really impressed by the enthusiasm shown by all those taking part in this model balloon meet, many of whom also fly conventional balloons and some of whom are commercial balloon pilots. It was also good to see whole families involved so with this in mind we would like to assist and encourage new UK model balloonists...

Mini Balloon Technical Details

Our two balloons are 1800 cubic ft and are single burners, most of the fuel system was supplied by Bolling Balloons (www.modellballone.com). Both balloons fly with three 1 litre fuel tanks and run vapour pilot lights. The radio controls have a fail-safe attached so if the balloon goes out of range or the batteries go flat the main fuel line is shut down.

Flamingo, our newest, has a manual main burner control in the basket, so the radio controls do not have to be worked during inflation. The three litres of fuel last about 45 minutes of tethering and a bit more in free-flight.

Contact

If anyone would like to chat about radio-controlled model balloons my email is miniballoons@bbac.org.

News

Andy and David are hoping to find find enough model balloons in the UK, to organise a meet or two. So if you are interested send them an email!