• MrShankles@reddthat.com
    3·
    2 hours ago

    That’s really cool! How did they transport the balloon & basket after it was deflated? Did they fold the balloon into the basket and load it onto a trailer or something? Did they have extra vehicles to bring the other passengers back? I know almost nothing about hot air balloons

  • Alpha71@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    10 hours ago

    Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about hot air balloons. You are completely and TOTALLY at the mercy of the wind.

    I was guarding an empty warehouse on a quite Sunday afternoon. I was standing on the roof just relaxing. The warehouse was right on the edge of the city limits. Beyond it was nothing but farmland. Anyways while i was up there I noticed a hot air balloon starting to descend. It was descending and coming in at an angle quite fast. When it hit the ground I wold say it was still going about 30Kph. and the basket was dragged about a football fields length before it finally came to rest. while it was being dragged I could see two people just go ass over teakettle and fall out of the basket as it was being dragged along.

    I assume it was an emergency landing because the wind had started picking up. Unfortunately the field they landed in didn’t have any access that wasn’t fenced off and was surrounded by deep ditches all around. The chase car drove everywhere around the field to try and get to them and eventually ended up driving up to a farmhouse and I assume they let them onto the field.

    I had to get back to wandering the warehouse so I never got to see what finally happened. But it was and interesting part of a quiet Sunday.

  • tpyo@lemmy.world
    6·
    11 hours ago

    What a cool experience!

    And I love how you were laughing the whole time. It really brought me a smile

  • Fondots@lemmy.world
    44·
    20 hours ago

    I’ve heard a lot of hot air balloon pilots carry a bottle of wine or something with them to help smooth things over with property owners who are unhappy about them landing on their property.

    So did you get anything good?

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
      6·
      11 hours ago

      Like in games, when a rare chance occurrence happens like this, and you talk to the pilot and he gives you a rare item (untradeable, of course)

    • hperrin@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      55·
      20 hours ago

      No, nothing like that. I got a really good story and video out of it, which is enough for me. :) I’m really glad he was able to set it down without anyone being hurt.

    • jacksilver@lemmy.world
      24·
      20 hours ago

      Came here to ask this. Growing up we’d have hot air balloons land in our neighborhood pretty frequently, they’d usually have a bottle of wine to hand out.

      • anomnom@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        8·
        11 hours ago

        Yeah our neighbors got one it missed our property line by less than 20 feet. They got a bottle of champagne or wine. But it was provably 30 years ago.

        The funny thing was in the mid 80s, chase vehicles would come down or street all the time and get stuck because it’s a huge circle with no outlet and 4 long cul du sacs along the way, but the maps showed a second outlet road that was never built and blocked off as a fire road.

        They’d blast back up the road once they finally figured it out and have to catch up. This was all way before GPS and cell phones, so if they lost sight of the balloon they’d have to go back to sone office and wait for the pilot to call in.

  • A Basil Plant@lemmy.world
    17·
    18 hours ago

    That’s incredible! Makes the transportation nerd in me be fired up with jealousy! And fortunate that no one was hurt, the pilot and the helpers really did a great job jumping your house. Was there any reason they told you why they had to make an emergency landing? Maybe I missed that part.

    But it looks like the gondola is lop-sided from the video. Is that it? Seems like the whole neighborhood came out to watch the spectacle :D

    • hperrin@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      25·
      18 hours ago

      He said the winds died down, and he didn’t have enough fuel to keep it up any longer, so he had to set it down. The gondola being lopsided was only once everyone had gotten out and the pilot was the only one in there. It was a big basket too. There were 13 people on board (including the pilot).