About Ballooning

If you haven't seen a hot air balloon up close, or you would like to know more about how they are operated, these pages are for you.

We've illustrated the practice of modern hot air ballooning using photographs of some CLAS members and their balloons in operation.

Brief History
Hot Air Balloons in general
Assembly and Inflation
Take-off and Flight
Landing and Pack-up

We're also happy to present the following links to some highly readable and informative articles by CLAS member Jim Ellis:

How to Launch a Hot Air Balloon
How to Fly a Hot Air Balloon
How to Land a Hot Air Balloon

Finally, here are some other web resources related to ballooning:

Link	Description
Joop de Wilde's Balloon Pages on the World Wide Web	The most comprehensive "everything including the kitchen sink" list of regularly-updated links on ballooning worldwide.
Balloon Federation of America	The main representative body for ballooning in the USA.
Balloon Dispatch	News and feature articles on ballooning
Balloon Life magazine	Monthly magazine on ballooning
HotAirBallooning.com	A high-quality set of online ballooning resources, including a good short set of "ballooning basics" for those new to the sport.
More to come...