Hot air balloon? Or Para/hang glider?

A hot air balloon is an aerostat. Lighter than air. A paraglider is heavier than air, and can be landed ( glider....) Without use of its non existent engine.

My ability drops with bladder fill level, to the point I’m effectively a waterlogged brain trying to look like a pilot.

Never, ever fly an aircraft with and endurance greater than your bladder capacity!

I’m about to convert onto the AW169, that’s 3 hours! I have a two hour bladder😭😭😭

SND

hope retirement is good mate, save some of it for us other old un’s.

To return to the original post/question, this old wrinkly had a terrific thrill when offered a flight LHS in a Paro identical to the one he had owned for many years. After 24 years it was just like riding a bicycle, every landing a greaser, power/pitch settings adjusted almost by sound. Where I came adrift was in radio procedure, and I was totally lost with some gadget called Garmin after doing my IR on single-pointer basic ADF etc. If you're taught the basics I think basic flying should be automatic ... but not this **** iphone and other electronic stuff.

On my longest-ever cross-countries, which were Calgary to Oshkosh and back (~1000 nautical miles each way), my companion and I tacitly agreed that two-hour legs were about right, never mind that the aircraft could manage over three hours!

Try 250Nm out into the Atlantic from the W coast of Ireland and back on a 5-hour rescue! The closest I have ever got to needing the pee-tube in the Sea King!

I agree that one should never fly with a very full bladder - among other things it is a distraction, and it can result in serious injury in a heavy landing / accident if it bursts (literally). However, being an aged glider pilot, with limited bladder capacity, flying cross-country flights of typically four or five hours - well beyong my bladder capacity - I make suitable arrangements - as do most cross-country glider pilots. In my case I choose to use aids for the incontinent which involve a sheath, a short tube with leakproof connector and a couple of 1 litre leg bags which I empty after landing. Because they are so widely used in gliding the BGA shop sells them.

There are other solutions which are more Blue Peter like involving half a washing-up liquid container fitted to a tube that exits the glider near the wheel. Sadly these can result in corrosion to the undercarriage, they also don't work at high altitude if the OAT drops below zero so one is left holding half a washing up liquid container full of liquid with no obvious solution to the problem!

It's a lot easier for men.

The rain in Spain ...
 

Boy meets girl etc. The following June they set off in his Paro for a fortnight around the Algarve and Morocco. All goes well for a couple of hours to the halfway point between San Sebastien and Faro, when the careful hydration for the hot climate results in ever more pressing need.

The Paro does not have a toilet cubicle but the lunch had been packed in a plastic bag. Of necessity the couple became even more closely acquainted … the bag was filled, speed back to 70 kts, DV window opened and bag released, with apologies to a little village west of Oviedo VOR.

Forty-plus years later she still must contend with his problem bladder, only it’s two or three times a night which now has a totally different meaning to that which it had 40 years ago. Fortunately we’ve forgotten what was different about it …

The rain in Spain falls mainly from the plane.