There is only a couple of weeks to go before the start of the 23rd FAI World Hot Air Balloon Championships in Groß-Siegharts, Austria. Balloony McBalloon face is already all packed up and on its way to Vienna.
People often ask us how you get a balloon overseas. It is actually pretty straight forward, just very expensive.
The first thing we have to do is clean it very thoroughly. Balloons spend a lot of time in the country and the baskets collect a lot of dirt, mud, dust and grass (and seeds). To get through international quarantine checks, all of this needs to be cleaned out. It generally isn’t such an issue getting it into other countries, however bringing it back to Australia is hard bit because Australia has some of the toughest quarantine rules in the world.
Once every thing is clean, then the gas tanks need to be emptied and then purged. Purging is when you flush out all residue flammable gas with an inert gas (e.g. compressed air).
Finally everything, including the tanks, burner, balloon envelope and bags full of flight equipment get stuffed inside the basket.
This year we have also decided to send our fan over to Austria as well. While this adds to the cost and complexity of the freighting (more fuel to drain and purge), we decided it was better to have our own equipment (that we know works) with over there. At the World Championships in 2012 we borrowed a fan from the event and it was terrible, causing us a lot of grief on the launch site.
Once everything is all packed up, it is all then put on a cargo plane and sent over to Vienna, where we will collect it when we arrive next week.
We have to thank Margaret at Kavanagh Balloons for doing all the work organising the freight and all the paperwork that goes along with it.
Balloony McBalloonface 