We contacted Virgin Balloon Flights about their balloon crossing the village at a low altitude last Saturday, and received the interesting response below from the pilot, Cary Crawley. We are grateful to Cary for allowing us to publish his comments below.
“Thank you for your message. I am writing to you as the pilot of the Virgin Balloon Flights hot air balloon on the morning of the 8th of August.
With specific regard to my actions in flight over Dry Drayton that morning – I was making a perfectly normal – and legal – approach to land on a field just to the South of the village. It was, as you correctly observe, in a field just beyond the power-lines.
I did however decide to fly on after a closer inspection of the dimensions of the field, its access points and the actual ground and wind conditions on the surface. The lower wind flow, which I descended into after crossing the power lines, was of a slightly different directional flow to the upper one. This made my approach and deflation path shorter than I would have wished.
In brief – the wind higher up was taking me across a wider part of the field, whereas the wind lower down was taking me across a narrower part of the field. Not wishing to deflate the balloon envelope too close to the trees down-wind, I flew on.
We made our final landing a few minutes later in a set-aside field beside the A428 near Madingley where we received a very warm, kind and helpful welcome from the resident agriculturalists.
As you may know – and as I always explain to my passengers – there is no Steering Wheel in a balloon. The wind travels at different speeds and in different directions at different heights. With practice and concentration, in stable weather conditions, the height of the balloon can be controlled very accurately. The pilot controls the descent and ascent into the varying flows of the wind in order to determine where the balloon travels. However, weather conditions change and evolve as the flight time passes, there is always a great element of serendipity.
With regard to over flying the delightful village of Dry Drayton – I have made about 23 flights in the Cambridge area so far this year and after consulting my log-book I can say,I have only flown over the village perhaps once before this year. It is a very pretty village seen from the air, a demonstration of the English countryside which gladdens the hearts of all those lucky enough to pass that way.
I hope this explains my actions and a little of how ballooning works.
You live in a very beautiful part of the country, which many people travel some distance to admire and enjoy. Many of our passengers stay locally for the weekend specifically for this purpose and return for short holiday breaks to the region.
Please feel free to contact me should you have any further interest in balloons, in this country or elsewhere.
With best wishes.
Cary Crawley.”
