Picture This: Balloon Down in Auburn
 

Apparently the pilot decided to land in someone's front yard due to light winds.

Must be a ballooning thing. I'll remember that next time I'm overhead Auburn in my light single. Oh, and if the crosswind component on Auburn Road is greater than allowed, nearby Camberwell Road is strategically placed for a 13/31 orientation.

Apparently they make a good cup of tea at number 24, but number 26 has chocolate biscuits. Your call. I'm sure it's going to be nicer than the tea and bickies with the Chief Pilot of Picture This Balloon Airlines Pty Ltd.

I concur that the winds were light. I watched this ballon and the black one from about 7:50 to 8:40am as I cycled into work and they hadn't moved much, they just slowly descended whilst travelling from north to south.

Bit strange though as you'd think they would just keep heading south towards Moorabbin, however perhaps there were some stronger winds coming that they knew of or perhaps flight times are limited by the amount of gas on board.

I think that's the key problem. They need to keep the envelope warmer than the surrounding air to keep the craft aloft. And like us "stinkwing" pilots, they need a certain amount of fuel to control the rate of descent to the crash site - pardon me - landing point. They really only have single-axis (y) controls, and those feature terrific hysteresis, while the other two degrees of freedom (x and z) are brought to you courtesy of the prevailing meteorological environment.

Who would go up in one of those things, seriously?

Saw this bunch of balloons taking off on my way to YMML this morning. One of them was a flying ad for some law firm and we joked that they could sue themselves when they had an incident :O

The balloon that dropped in on Hawthorn was advertising Fujitsu. It's a wonder their marketing department wasn't down there quick smart painting out their logo like the major airlines do!

Should mean they can charge more for sponsorship next year. 'We'll get you on the news!'

Yeah, but in a good way?

What? wheres the standard "...the Cessna was seen to be spiraling towards the ground with is wings on fire..." or "...people on the ground were forced to run for cover..."?

Damn close to those power lines... certainly close in terms of fixed wing distances!

Love the way the guy involved with the balloon Co said in an interview 'thank god there's still some adventure in life' (or words to that effect) obviously meaning it's no big deal to land right next to power lines in a residential area, all normal I guess:-)
That's the trouble with SE Balloons:E


Wmk2

I wonder what their reserve fuel requirements are? It probably take a fair whack of propane to keep 10 people aloft for a couple of hours I'd imagine.

That's just what we need Wal, a balloon spearing in due asymmetric thrust. Not good :=

.............hey 'JR' who said anything about assy thrust, could be a twin 'in-line' burner then again seeing as we have here a rudderless ship it's kinda academic anyway:ok::E
Funny how the balloon was mankind's first attempt at flight a year or two ago & it's still hap hazard now as it was back then:)

Was at EN one morning many moons ago when the usual half doz or so out of control balloons where looking for somewhere to 'crash' & several where making for En drome, amazing one near missed it heading east! Could hear the hapless pax yelling out upon touchdown!:E

Wmk2

Simply 'mazin' when you look at the number of cross channel flights that were accomplished for decades throughout the 19th century. Though the Montgolfiers and Count Rozier etc lit fires to do it, gas soon became the popular lifting agent. The Short Brothers were heavilly into that before they studied the Wright Flier, drew up plans by arrangement with Wilbur (in France) and built a number of them at Sheppey, making that the first aircraft factory in Britain.

Knew an ex-RAF fast-jet Jaguar pilot who got into ballooning.

He said he went from 600knots and landing at the same place he took off from, to zero knots (or slightly backwards airspeed, being blown along) and NEVER landing at the place he took off from. Quite a change.