Competition Hot-Air Ballooning

From 21st to 25th November, the "2007 Tochigi Hot Air Balloon International Championship" and the "Hot Air Balloon Honda Grand Prix Grand Final" took place in areas along the Kinu River flowing in Tochigi and Ibaraki prefectures.

While the main venue was in Tochigi (Twin Rink Motegi and Utsunomiya-shi), thanks to the wind conditions, many balloons came down to Shirosato-machi and Kasama-shi in Ibaraki. I hope that some of you were able to see beautiful or unexpected balloons in the blue sky!

This championship has a worldwide reputation as a high-level competition because of its vast flight area, variety of terrain, and range of tasks. In addition, this is the only full-scale international hot air balloon competition in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Therefore, more than 30 highly-skilled pilots came together from countries all over the world like Australia, Italy, USA, and the UK, and played out exciting battles overhead.

Pilots match their skills of accuracy by seeing who can approach the declared goal called the "target" and drop the sand bag called the "marker" most closely. As you may know, the hot air balloon itself can only ascend and descend by heating. To move right and left, wind is an essential source of power for balloons. That is why pilots are required to be able to read different wind directions at different altitudes to approach the target. Luckily, I took part in this competition as a crew member of Team Mukumuku from the Kyūshū region of Japan. In the final task, our proud pilot Mr. Inoue was the closest one to the target, only 22 cm away!

To tell the truth, before the competition started, he felt down a little bit because of his wife. Mrs. Inoue is a woman in the spotlight as a world record holder in balloon flight duration: 7 hours 4 minutes 49 seconds (Female record). But now, Mr. Inoue also got a chance to hold center stage.

I am a beginner and do not have a pilot license, but really enjoyed hot air ballooning day and night for 5 days.

In Ibaraki, the Koga Balloon Festival is held in every spring. If you are interested in ballooning, please join us!