Skydiving Experience

First a couple of jumps within the morning, and inside the afternoon we left for the hot air balloon festival in Breda. It took our Caravan about half an hour to fly to Breda. We had to spot ‘manually’ mainly because the coordinates in our GPS didn’t match what we saw (= were wrong). There was quiet a little of wind (some 10 to 15 knots, my estimate) but some oldtimers about the load worked it out perfectly: 3 runs, everybody landed in.

Late afternoon, the wind calmed down, and te balloons could go up. And we could make a balloon jump. A couple of balloonists started calculating with windspeeds, altitudes and directions. Checking google maps on their i-phones, and off we went. To some field about 15 km upwind. We unloaded our balloon, and 15 minutes later, we were definitely airborne: 4 skydivers, 6 ‘regular’ passengers and 2 crew. Imagine our surprise (and admiration) when their calculations proofed spot on: we ended up heading straight towards the festival terrain. We have been going to jump 2 by 2. I was in the first ‘run’. Altitude around 4000 ft, the balloonist gives the go, we climb on the basket. Ready set go. What an incredible feeling. The quiet, silence, and then the speed (and the wind) starting, having louder. The forward speed building up (the track gaining effect). Whooaw. I never made a basejump, but I can certain see that this is addictive.

There have been still a handful of balloons taking off or having ready to take off when I came in to land. You really can not judge the vertical or horizontal speed of a balloon underneath you, so that was a bit tricky. But hey, a balloon fly-by with all the passengers waving at you, that’s good, no? I gave a little of show on landing, and I got quiet a huge applause for it.

Free food and drinks for the rest in the evening. Thx everybody for a excellent experience!

This (plus quite a few other) pictures ended up made by Lars Scheve, official photographer with the event.