June trading at Zebedee continued busy after the Midlands Air Festival right to the end with our baskets for sale list now shrunk to only two, whilst ‘booked’ are two of the older envelopes that have been advertised in these pages. Alan Hall has also sold his Kubicek envelope.
We have now updated our burners list, dominated by Colt C2 Doubles, with three ready to go with Form Ones and two more which could be used for spares or the basis for further restorations.
New for this issue is a 105 envelope from Rich Simkins and a selection of assorted smaller items including a Worthington cylinder from Neil Gabriel. To keep this selection together, these appear at the end of our ‘Other’ section this month.
From ‘Stop Press’ comes a package of two complete G-reg 90s from William Treacy in the Republic of Ireland. We believe these to be good value for anyone prepared to put effort in to retrieve them & get them re-certified, having not flown for several years.
From Austria is the news that Stubai have discontinued the ubiquitous 2.5 ton oval karabiner in the form which has been the standard for as long as most of us can remember on most British balloons. The “updated” version looks very similar but as far as we know is not yet approved for a Form One on EASA balloons. We have a small stock for Annexe 1 balloons available. See Zebedee’s Box.
Sadly, recent UK ballooning news has been dominated by the death of Peter Gregory early on Sunday 25th June near Worcester whilst flying his homebuilt ‘racer’ type balloon on a competition flight. Peter, 25, was one of the young, successful group of UK competition pilots making their mark in international championships in recent years. He worked as a commercial pilot with Ryanair, with what this scribe would rate as a job ‘as good as it gets’, flying the company’s Learjets around Europe delivering crucial spares and engineers to stranded members of the airline’s fleet of 500+ Boeing 737s.
The AAIB are investigating the accident with assistance from the BBAC.
Our sincere condolences at their tragic loss to parents Andrew and Louise, brother Dan and girlfriend Emma. A total ballooning family…