This would be a great idea to do here in Panama where we could launch on the Pacific and fly across to the Caribbean. Someone pickup on this please. How about the folks at Nitro City??
PARIS — A hot air balloon festival at a former NATO airfield in eastern France broke two records in as many days this week — first by sending up 408 piloted balloons in an hour, then by lining up 391 balloons on the runways and sending them up together.
The sound of hundreds of gas burners blasting simultaneously is extraordinary, said Denis Martignon, a pilot who flew both days.
“It was an impressive wall of balloons,” Martignon said.
The annual Lorraine Mondial Air Balloons is organized by a descendent of the 18th century aeronautics pioneer Jean-Francois Pilatre de Rozier who took up the family hobby. Philippe Buron Pilatre has been piloting balloons since 1979.
“My father flew. My son flies. My brother flies. Someday my grandson might fly,” he said Friday.
This would be wonderful however you must remember that hot air balloons rely entirely on the “wind” for navigation. The wind must be blowing in the right direction to more across the isthmus. It it blows out to sea that is a real problem. Also, because the the balloons can only rise if the temperature inside the balloon is higher than the outside temperature (its hot in Panama all the time) it makes it more difficult to gain altitude. So, conditions would have to be just perfect requiring balloon crews to wait for the right conditions.