Balloons over Waikato Festival

Early on Friday morning some HES families turned up at Dawson Park to watch

the inflation of an enormous hot air balloon. Some lucky people also got to take off

in the balloon as well. Luckily it was tethered (held down with a rope) and we returned to earth in timefor school and positive assembly. There was also a Night Glow event at WaikatoUniversity that many of us in Room 10 went to, in this movie there is also footage and photos from the Night Glow which was beautiful to see all the balloons lit up at night.

Some interesting facts about hot air ballooning the pilot shared with us at 
positive assembly:

• the balloon can only go up to 2000 cubic feet because the aeroplanes might hit it and you get low on oxygen to breath
• you don't need a license to fly a hot air balloon 
• it can reach 500,000 feet but it's not allowed to
• the most amount of people you can hold in a basket is 35
• the pilot has been flying hot air balloons for 7 years, he has clocked up 100 hours of flying time
• it takes half an hour to pack up the hot air balloon after deflation