They need to find a wide open space, where there are no power lines and plenty of room to lay out the balloon. When the pilot is ready to land, he or she discusses possible landing sites with the ground crew (via an onboard radio). The landing process, combined with deflating and re-packing the balloon envelope, takes a while longer. As the air heats up, the balloon lifts right off the ground.Īmazingly, this entire process only takes 10 or 15 minutes. When everything is set, the ground crew releases the balloon and the pilot fires a steady flame from the burner. The balloon basket is also attached to the ground crew vehicle until the last minute, so the balloon won't be blown away before it is ready to launch. The ground crew members hold the basket down until the launch crew is on board. Then, they can be there to collect the passengers and equipment. For this reason, some members of a hot air balloon crew have to stay on the ground, following the balloon by car to see where it lands. So, unlike flying an airplane, hot air balloon piloting is largely improvised, moment to moment. And it's very rare that you would be able to pilot the balloon back to your starting point. Consequently, you can't really pilot a hot air balloon along an exact course. Usually, wind conditions give the pilot very few options. Of course, even the most experienced pilot doesn't have complete control over the balloon's flight path. Since wind speed generally increases as you get higher in the atmosphere, pilots can also control horizontal speed by changing altitude. To move in a particular direction, a pilot ascends and descends to the appropriate level, and rides with the wind. This raises an interesting question: If pilots can only move hot air balloons up and down, how do they get the balloon from place to place? As it turns out, pilots can maneuver horizontally by changing their vertical position, because wind blows in different directions at different altitudes. If the pilot keeps the valve open long enough, the balloon will sink.Įssentially, these are the only controls - heat to make the balloon rise and venting to make it sink. This causes the balloon to slow its ascent. When the pilot pulls the attached cord, some hot air can escape from the envelope, decreasing the inner air temperature. Hot air balloons also have a cord to open the parachute valve at the top of the envelope. A Kevlar cord runs from the valve at the top of the balloon, down to the basket, through the center of the envelope. The parachute valve, from the inside of the balloon. The skirt, the nylon at the base of the envelope, is coated with special fire-resistant material, to keep the flame from igniting the balloon. Nylon works very well in balloons because it is lightweight, but it is also fairly sturdy and has a high melting temperature. The gores, which extend from the base of the envelope to the crown, are made up of a number of smaller panels. In most modern hot air balloons, the envelope is constructed from long nylon gores, reinforced with sewn-in webbing. This gas makes for a more powerful flame and more efficient fuel consumption. This changes the propane from a liquid to a gas, before it is ignited. When the tubing becomes hot, it heats the propane flowing through it. As the flame burns, it heats up the metal in the surrounding tubing. When the balloonist starts up the burner, the propane flows out in liquid form and is ignited by a pilot light.

The heating coil is simply a length of steel tubing arranged in a coil around the burner.

Because the propane is highly compressed in the cylinders, it flows quickly through the hoses to the heating coil.

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