One of the common features among old hot air balloon pilots is lack of hearing. I had my first hot air balloon flight on April Fools Day 1971. I suppose I was very young but I was old enough to have completed my first degree, marry my first (and only) wife in the same month and buy my first house a few months later. Funnily enough it was not only my first balloon flight but the first flight of my first balloon. In those days you often had to buy a balloon to get a flight in one.
But going back to lack of hearing. Balloon burners are louder than they seem, and both pilots' and passengers' heads are only 300mm from the source of the noise. Even so lighting the pilot light, opening the valve to start burning and then finally freeing the balloon from the ties of earth is such FUN, worth all of the future lack of hearing.
I want the Lighting, Burning, Freeing Conference in Westminster in January to just as much fun. I am sure we will produce a lot of hot air but I doubt we will be able to lift the roof of the QEII conference centre.
