Steady on, chaps, this is the slippery slope to a Ballooning Forum........
Parachutes are not normally worn unless something dangerous is being attempted. Ian Ashpole in earlier years was fond of crossing between two balloons connected by a rigid bar, but that was the exception. Barring a catastrophic envelope failure, you are already under the biggest parachute system so individual ones are superfluous. Even if complete dual redundancy burner systems fail, the stabilised max rate of descent is unlikely to exceed 1000' per minute, which is survivable in a woven basket with a cushion floor (for a given value of survivable).
Balloons do occasionally collide, but it's a gentle event as they are usually moving in the same air mass. It is dangerous to put a basket into another balloon's envelope and extremely dangerous to get it tangled into the top parachute vent system. The lower balloon always has right of way - it's up to the higher balloon to keep clear. If they must touch, you aim to do it equator to equator - it's a non-event really.
Sound carries a huge distance from the ground and on a frosty day you can have a conversation from several fields away. I guess it's all background fuzz above 8,000' but I've never done any experiments. You can certainly hear the French TGVs from 3,000'.
Hot air balloons are either made from ripstop nylon or polyester fabric: silk is not an option!
Modern ripstop nylon melts easily and most of us have burnt panels usually on inflation under gusty conditions. For this reason most envelopes have the first horizontal panels made from Nomex, which isn't flameproof but is resistant enough for normal use. The burners are designed to form an intense tubular flame pattern which means that for most purposes it gets lost in the volume of the envelope as it moves away from the mouth. A fluid dynamicist would explain that a fast-moving flame drags along an outer sheath of cooler air that insulates the worst effects of the radiant heat from the fabric.
A fusible heat-link high in the crown will melt and cause a streamer to fall into the basket if the crown temperature exceeds 130C or so. There is always a tempilabel tell-tale nearby which will confirm that overtemperature has occured. Anything in excess of 121C requires an overtemperature inspection and sign-off - a few degrees more if polyester fabric is used.
Apart from having a trip with a friendly local pilot, if you get the chance to look inside the inflated envelope of a hot air balloon, you'll be amazed at the beauty of the structure - the craftsmanship is amazing. The special shapes are true aeronautical fabric architecture made flesh and are hugely complex internally to achieve the outward appearance.
Hope this helps/informs.
Ripline
Last edited by Ripline; 9th Apr 2017 at 21:04.
Reason: appaling spellin'......