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| So what got Andrew into ballooning? |
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My parents lived in a place called Totterdown in Bristol, directly in the
line of flight for the prevailing winds from Ashton Court in Bristol, home of the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta.
I became used to be being woken up at 6am by the sound of the burners of a balloon drifting low over the house.
I received a balloon flight as a gift for my 21st birthday and flew over the centre of Bristol from Ashton Court.
It was a memorable flight, but even then I was more interested in the flying than taking pictures.
About a year later, I had become disillusioned with my job in the music industry and one morning without
a great deal of thought gave it all up. I walked into Cameron Balloons' reception in Bristol and said
'I want to be a balloon pilot - can you help?'
Cameron put me onto an instructor and within the year I had my private licence. Flying had become a passion
that was now running deep in my blood and I really did not want to do anything else. I got sponsorship
for my first balloon which allowed me to gain enough experience to acquire my commercial pilot's
licence, which in turn allowed me to start to earn money from ballooning and repay some of the debt
I had acquired in learning to fly and gaining enough hours in the air. |
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| Exclusive Ballooning |
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I launched Exclusive Ballooning in 1999 with one balloon and the capacity
to carry an amazing six people per day offering champagne flights from four sites in the South West.
In 2000, GoBallooning.co.uk was born and this took over as the passenger rides side of the business whilst
Exclusive Ballooning became primarily involved with corporate hospitality and aerial advertising and marketing.
By 2004, having won many awards en route, Exclusive Ballooning and it's sister company GoBallooning.co.uk were
the largest balloon operation in the UK, operating nearly 30 balloons over 15 countries, with a capacity to fly
200 people each day over nearly 100 sites throughout the UK, Ireland and our exclusive sites in Tuscany, Italy. |
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| Team Sloggi and competition ballooning |
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I became interested in competitive ballooning as soon as I had my licence. I entered
a competition called the Counties Challenge, a UK-wide ballooning competition -
www.countieschallenge.co.uk -
which, to my surprise, I won. In recent years our team, which primarily consists of me as pilot with Robin
Hislop and Neil Edmunds as main ground crew, has learnt to work exceptionally well together. We can now
put a balloon in the air within eight minutes of opening the trailer.
We have remained unbeaten in the Counties Challenge since we first won it seven years ago. This
competition alone has seen us set records such as the longest flight on the Isle of Wight and the
first flight on the Isle of Anglesey, flying over the Millennium Dome in London, 6000 feet up just
north of Land's End, 23,000 feet up over Somerset, flying in the snowy Scottish mountains.... the list goes on.
We have also won the long distance trophy from the Bristol Balloon Fiesta for a flight to Aylesbury, won BBAC
Gold badges for Altitude and Duration, and silver badges for Precision and Distance. 2003 saw our first dabble
into marker dropping competitive ballooning. We attended three events, two in the UK and one in the Ukraine.
We finished our first ever event, in the Ukraine, with a silver medal. We followed this up with a bronze
medal in the UK ballooning Grand Prix and a Best New Pilot award for our sixth place in our first UK Nationals.
We are very excited about the forthcoming 2004 season, the UK nationals and ballooning grand prix series, the
Polish national championships and of course the Honda World Grand Prix taking in the USA, Luxembourg and Japan.
Sloggi's enthusiasm and support is so important to us, they can see the potential in our team which ultimately and
impatiently wants to be considered a major force in the world of competitive ballooning. |
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