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Duchess from Eindhoven to Knegsel
I have always wanted to go sailing in a balloon and today it finally happened. If you remember Eindhoven Ballooning you know I made this decision last year already. This time I wanted to experience this event from the inside, not as a spectator.
So Julia had enlisted me to fly on Saturday July 15th this year. Just like on the airport one should be present two hours before the flight, but of course that wasn’t useful at all. I had to wait for a long time at the check-in tent before anything started to happen.
The flights on Thursday and Friday had all been cancelled due to the strong wind, but the weather forecast for Saturday evening looked very promising. Tonight there was also a quite strong wind, but eventually we were allowed to take off. We would have an Eastnotheasternly wind (70 degrees) at 12 knots. I could no longer escape!
I was to go in the balloon “Bassie en Adriaan” (PH-TYN). (Bassie & Adriaan are a Dutch clowning duo and I am not really one of their fans, but we didn’t get to choose witch balloon we wanted to be in.) Anyway, once you are in the balloon you don’t see what it looks like. Our captain was not Bassie, not Adriaan, but Dolf de Leeuw, one of the most experienced balloon sailors in the Netherlands. So that was very well arranged!
The Eindhoven city council has new plans for the ground around lake Karpendonk. That is why this event could not take place there this year. It is a pity, because last year the terrain was perfect for this event. It was now diverted to the technical university grounds and there was not enough room there. So the balloons were in each other’s way. We had to wait for ages until the Virgin balloon next to us was finally ready to go.
And by the time we finally could get started, a new team took the place where the Virgin balloon had just left off and started to get in our way. A dangerous situation! I warned the pilot next to us his balloon was close to getting sheddred in our fan, but he didn’t seem to mind that. And it got even worse when our burner was switched on, because now their balloon almost got fire!
If warning does not help a workaround has to be found so that is what happened. Julia put her full weight against our neighbor’s balloon and that helped: No accidents happened.
She just let go of it for a moment to say goodbye to me.
Meanwhile our pilot was working very hard to get us off the ground; away from the crowds. Then, suddenly, we went up, up and away, heading… westsouthwest, driven by the eastnortheasterly wind.
Of course I was hoping we would fly over my own house. With a wind from 70 degrees that would have been very likely to happen, but it didn’t. Apparently the wind had turned further to the east, to about 80 degrees.
And so we flew out of the university area.
The Philips-stadium and the Evoluon are probably the most recognizable buildings in Eindhoven.
But St. Trudo’s church is a real beauty when seen from above. I never new churches look so nice looking from this angle.
We were not the only ones in the sky. Behind us and in front of us we could see lots of other balloons.
When Julia saw my pictures she said: “Have you “joined” the church?“
I can’t help it; they are so beautiful. This is the church of the village of Oerle…
I hope we are not going to fly into that water over there…
We did, we did hit the water! Some people in the basket got their feet wet, but not me, fortunately. Now we had to ascend again quickly to avoid hitting th
ose trees…
Soon after that we had a smooth landing.
Well, smooth, we were dragged along for at least ten yards. You can see the trace this made in the grass.
In the distance you can see the truck that is coming to pick us up already. The balloon is neatly folded and packed to go back in the truck and then taken back to our starting point.
Packing the balloon is heavy work, so I left that to the men.
Drinking champagne on the other hand is not too heavy for me. 
Our pilot told us about the history of hot air balloons. The first ballooners were French. They had made a balloon out of paper and below it they made a fire with a lot of manure and other stuff that causes a lot of smoke. At the time they thought that it was the smoke that made the balloon go up. They had no idea it was caused by the hot air.
Of course this dirty fire created a lot of sparks, so all during the flight they had to use wet cloths at the ends of long sticks to extinguish the spots where sparks were setting the balloon on fire.
When they landed, the French king was so impressed by their courage that he made them owner (landlord) of all the area they had flown over.
That is why, even today, every one who has flown — I mean sailed — in a balloon for the first time is knighted. So now I am duchess from Eindhoven to Knegsel, because that is the path we followed.
Being knighted involves kneeling of course and some ceremonies… I will not tell about the ceremonies, but leave those as a surprise to future ballooners.
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