CLICK HERE TO VIEW PHOTOS FROM THE ICICLE 2009

In its 37th year the Icicle balloon meet is possibly the oldest balloon meet in the country, if not europe that still runs. It is also the first balloon event on the ballooning calander in the UK by always running on the first full weekend in january.

Unlike other years where the Great British weather has not always provided us with the best of flying conditions, this years proved to be the exception with glorius conditions throughout the weekend (albeit a little cold about -7C in fact). With the weather looking good Myself and Ed Chapman (my pilot for the weekend) decided we couldnt miss flying from the event so we brought Trigger (G-BIBO) to the meet and joined 68 other balloons participating. After arriving at the event and meeting up with another balloon team which we were to double retreive with, we listened to the briefing given by the organisers and decided to do something different to the other balloonists from the event and try to fly into the launch site from another launch site 10 miles down the road.

When we arrived to the launch site we were a little surprised to see several other teams setting up along with a passenger balloon already inflating. We set about setting up Trigger and the other balloon with us G-CEGG a small hopper flown by Chris Dobson, after about 15 minutes we had both balloons being inflated and standing up right.

We took off together and headed into the direction of the Severnake Farm (which was easy to find as balloons started pouring out of the launch site). After reaching a certain height we found we were going at a decent pace towards the other balloons and adjusting our height from time to time managed to keep heading towards the launch site, where depending on activity on the field we would try to land in. As we got closer it seemed apparent we were going to miss the launch site (only by 400 metres it has to be said) Chris in his hopper had more success and managed to land in the field next to launch site.

After an hour of flying the thought came to landing the balloon but after looking at the fuel we used about 3/4 of a tank, we decided to carry on for another 20 minutes and fly with the pack for a little bit and eventually landed in a farm close to a main road where our crew, after picking up Chris, found us (albeit slightly frozen).

After packing up and going back to the Severake launch site there were balloons still flying and continued to fly all day. We, however, decided to have a look around the stalls and tradestand at the Elcot hotel and have a chat to balloonists we only get to see at these kind of balloon meets; it is a great chance to socialise and meet new balloonists.

The next day was a little dull compared to the previous day, but flyable none the less. Having stayed at the nearby Holiday Inn we turned up at the launch site fairly early along with around 60 other teams, as the breifing was going on we stumbled into a bit of a problem (no crew), but this was the icicle and after 5 minutes we enlisted a 4×4 along with some crew to help follow and find us. Within no time we were airborne again, we found the wind was going in the opposite direction to last time and started heading towards the south of Newbury.

This wasnt going to be a long flight and proved to be uneventful and as the weather was due to come in later in the day and after around 55minutes we found a nice landing spot which was frozen, meaning we could keep the balloon dry while packing up and we waited for our new crew to arrive to pick us up.

After we got picked up we went straight to the Elcot to see the awards being handed out. I hoped that BIBO might get the oldest balloon award to fly but was easily beaten buy a balloon 4 years older (Maybe next year). Overall the event was a great success with some great flying and throughly looking forward to next year.

Special thanks goes to Ed Chapman, Phil McCheyne, Chris Dobson, Chris and the nice couple who retreived on Sunday for their help.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PHOTOS FROM THE ICICLE 2009

Photo and report are with thanks and © Copyright Douglas Hoddinott