After the wet UK winter, April by contrast turned into an early summer here with many of us enjoying some flyable mornings and the first of those magic evening flights which end in a gentle landing leaving time for a relaxing drink & meal afterwards !
The market for balloons and accessories has been busy too. Jan Vonka’s US built V-77 quickly found a local buyer straight from ‘Stop Press’, Peter Dowlen’s basket, Kim’s LBL burner and Land Rover, Peter Mossman’s burner and Nick Dunnington’s Z-210 envelope all sold during the month.
At Zebedee the last basket advertised has sold ‘emptying’ our basket box in the printed List for the first time ever. Also a recent rush on burner frames has accounted for six in total either sold or reserved.
New for May are items moving over from ‘Stop Press’ including Gary Davies’ V-77 envelope G-BUWU and Jan Vonka’s Cameron Mk4 single burner.
Meanwhile Haydn Board has dropped the price of his low-houred Ultramagic H-31 G-CKHJ.
Also on ‘Stop Press’ during the month was an ad from Susan Carroll for 2 Cameron flight bags and a Trevor Thom Meteorology book for free to a new young Pu/t. As predicted they quickly found exactly such a home. This kind gesture fits nicely with the drive to recruit youngsters to the BBAC to build upon where “us oldies” have reached over many enjoyable years, be it as pilots, inspectors (sorry, “engineers” now!) or in other related businesses which keep ballooning alive. It is good to see from the May ‘Aerostat’ that our new committee is similarly focussed…