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Balloon Flying in Thailand
Our trip to Thailand had been long awaited, originally planned
for the winter of 94/95. My wife Karin had bought the maps and
books and even packed; we were off. The balloon was ready at
Thunder and Colt with a heavy duty basket tailor made for hard
use overseas. And then they went bust. The delay meant that we
missed the relatively short window available for flying in
Thailand. So it was rainy old England for most of the winter and
a rethink of the plan for us. I had been asked to go out there
by Jon Nunns having previously worked for him in South Africa
flying passenger ride balloons.
Jon's interest in Thailand comes from several commercial tours
he's probably had the most experience of flying in Thailand. Sky
balloons agent in Thailand managed to sell one of the first
balloons to roll off the production line to a pair of business
men who wanted to learn to fly and fly advertising banners in I
come again, this time to train and point them the right way.
So after a fantastic summer passenger flying in England, it was
off on a Quantas Jumbo from a snowy December Heathrow. We caught
a connecting flight from Bangkok to Chaing Mai, a city in the
North which was hosting the South East Asia Games, ( SEA games )
our first port of call. Jon, returning from SAGA, was there for
three days to ease us into things.
Our hosts had managed to find sponsor's a cell phone company
and we had a busy schedule ahead. The city was humming with
activity related to the games and it was great fun to be there.
We generally flew across the city in the mornings and over the
main stadium in the evenings.
The stadium itself was about 10km from the centre of the city
and lay under an east facing slope which of course moved into
shade in the evening allowing us to fly over the stadium and
away into open countryside, the mornings had the ability to take
us up the slope and away to the west which was not a good idea
as there was about 50km of forest and national park before the
next road.
It was always fairly calm and finding places to land was not a
problem. We were not alone in the air a Carlsburg balloon had
been shipped in from Europe and a Cameron Gas airship from
America. Strangely neither thought to visit or call the
international airport 8km south of the stadium. This caused some
amount of trouble as Thai's love complicated permissions to fly
and neither had any. As we did have permission we were
contactable and received some amount of flack from their CAA. We
smoothed the path quite well for them, prison was mentioned on
more than one occasion!
The airship did a fantastic job seemingly never out of the air
and carrying a TV camera beaming live pictures from the stadium.
During the evening we tethered next to the stadium and the
airship still plodded around dropping leaflets.
Thai's are football fanatics and the Asian cup was also held
during the games in the evening. Our tethers coincided with all
the home team games. As Thailand progressed through the ranks
tickets sold out and it started to get ugly at the gates. For
the semi final the fans burnt down the ticket tents in protest
and several thousand extra tried to get in causing an outbreak
of police brutality.
We tethered high allowing us to see the matches and carried PR
people, they tended to want to stay up a while as we had the
best view in the house!
On the first and last day of the games we flew into the stadium
itself, the first flight by Jon, with me on board and the last
by myself. What a fantastic feeling when you drop over the edge
of the stadium roof and come to a dead stop amid all that noise
and then pile out again, really good fun, it comes highly
recommended!
The flights over the city were also commendable. The airport
required us to stay below 1000' and if we required to fly higher
then we had to call them on VHF. It worked well and of course
flying across temples at low level was fascinating. Chaing Mai
old city lies within a square canel and contains some 300
temples in total. It was here that we aimed to overfly every
day. The River Ping winds it's way to the east of the old city
and was very handy for big direction changes. As a rule most
wind directions could be found and staying over the city centre
for an hour or so and then climbing and departing was fairly
easy.
I have to say that Northern Thai's seemed more fun loving than
their Southern countrymen. To this end they enjoy letting off
fireworks and tissue balloons carrying balls of burning rag to
keep them aloft. Not uncommon to see 10 or so cross the night
sky glowing red when drinking a beer. They climb quite high as
well I flew with some at 3000'. On a couple of occasions, on
landing villagers let off tissue balloons in our honour. They
also flew bigger ones with strings of fireworks blasting away
underneath. All good stuff for balloonists to watch. The last
night of the games saw the launch of in excess of 1000 of these
balloons in about 10 minutes from all around the stadium, and as
it was a calm night it was the prettiest balloon thing I've ever
seen.
So once that was all over it was off to Bangkok eight hours
South by road. Unbeknown to myself we had come to the notice of
the Prime Ministers office and were sought out for a job!
The deputy Prime Minister, Thakasin Shinawat, had said on
coming into office early in 1995, that by the middle of January
1996 (or 2539 as it is over there) he would sort out Bangkoks
traffic problems. He has been pouring millions of Baht of his
own money into what is basically an impossible
task. He has also
been doing all sorts of stunts to show the people that he is
trying to remedy the situation.
We were asked to fly him over Bangkok to observe the traffic
from the air, this being in their words, a low cost solution.
Permissions obviously had to be sought. We were summoned for our
first meeting with the CAA on Christmas Day, at 10 O'clock,
everybody apparently finding it amusing that I was missing my
Christmas day. On arriving it transpired that they didn't really
want us to fly as it is a military state and they didn't want me
to see anything I shouldn't. The Kings Palace is a no no to fly
over as you should never have your head higher than his! However
the civilian run Prime ministers office had put big pressure on
and they felt they had to relent and by the way, what could we
tell them about the other balloon and airship in Chaing Mai (
are you getting the picture that this is a warning). It
transpired that we held the winning hand but they really had to
tell us they did not like it first. There one and only request
was that I didn't fly higher than 500'. Now what! a pleasure.
Royal helicopters fly at 800' so that was that. I walked away on
Christmas days with a piece of paper that ordered me to fly not
above 500 AGL wherever I liked! A trip then to the tower at
Bangkok International to let them know what was happening and
pick up an air chart. They already knew all about us and
wouldn't give me an air chart: military secrets and all that. If
I'd known I could have brought them in England before we left!
Thus it came to pass that I was doing balloon traffic reports
over the city of Bangkok with the deputy Prime Minister on board
and a film crew and five TV crews following through the traffic.
We flew two days doing four flights. The flights themselves were
pretty exciting to the point that I wouldn't rush to do them
again. The tallest building is getting on for 1000' and we flew
right between a bunch of them of course stopping all the traffic
as we went. For those that know we launched from just above Siam
Square and flew across generally towards the Queen Siriket
Convention centre and then over the river. The 500' level became
a real pain in the afternoons as the OAT was some 37C and
thermals were popping off all over the place I may or may not
actually flown quite a bit higher at the beginning of these
flights and came down when it cooled down, but perhaps I'd set
the altimeter incorrectly!
So after all the fun and games it was off to train three people
in total: our agent and the two business men. To start with we
went off to Rayong a Province to the SE of Bangkok renowned for
it's beach resort Pattaya. The guys for some reason where keen
to train there. Unfortunately it proved too coastal and the sea
breeze knocked out the evening flights and the land breeze in
the mornings. Our permission was only for a 25 km square so we
couldn't go any further inland.
Not a problem as one of the guys had relatives with a farm near
Kanchanaburi, home of the bridge over the river Kwai in the west
of the country. It was here that most of the training was done.
It was an ideal area for ballooning, being generally flat with
occasional 5-600 foot hills popping up like islands. The fields
are mainly of Sugar Cane roughly three quarters and the rest are
rice paddies. Everything went fine and after three return trips
to Bangkok on business the guys where ready. They will be
travelling to England to take their PPL's shortly.
One more surprise lay in store. Seeing as the flying into the
stadium in Chaing Mai had gone so well I was asked to fly into
another with a football to start The Thai football league. Not
such a big deal but the stadium as 500 metres from the sea with
houses all the way to it. Luck was on our side once more and
after two days of strong monsoon winds on the day in question it
was calm. We inflated behind a five story building which was
right next to the stadium and bang on for the wind direction.
The signal for us to launch was a series of fireworks the ninth
being our go. At the practices which we couldn't fly into
because of the wind we made sure that the marching bands had
left and we had a clear stage. You know whats coming
next.1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 Go, we rose from behind the building to
see that everybody was still stood there,down between them all I
came our official hopped out with the football and handed it to
the President of Yamaha and we quickly deflated the balloon,! no
way was I going to fly out of that one!
So thats briefly it, I haven't touched on the really
infuriating stuff, the stuff thats supposed to add character
afterwards. I'll let you find out all those bits for yourselves.
If you are interested in going out there then the man to
contact In fact the head man of the brand new Balloon Club Of
Thailand is:-
YUTAKIT WANICHANOND
125/135 CHANGWATANA ROAD
PAKRET
NONTABURI
11120
THAILAND
FAX 584 0042
To update the story in June 04, the deputy Prime Minister
became the Prime Minister and is poised to buy a share of
Liverpool Football club in the UK. I have since flown in
Australia, Kenya and am now back in South Africa with my own
ride business. http://www.airborneadventuresafrica.com
Gary Mortimer
About the author:
Gary has been flying hot air balloons for 18 years in all sorts
of strange places. Including Australia, England, France, Kenya,
Thailand and South Africa.
Hot Air Balloons have bothered him for most of his adult life!
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