Your Flight is Customized
Just like Burger King – Have it your way!
I want to tell you about how I like to fly. Some pilots are based in one spot and fly, pretty much, out of the same launch point. Many (actually most) commercial pilots regularly fly four, five, six, and even more passengers at a time. I fly only two passengers* at a time and don’t fly out of any one spot with any regularity. (I flew 54 times last year and didn't fly out of the same spot more than 4 times)
Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking other balloonists, most of whom, around here have been flying for a long time and are damn good pilots. If you get a chance to fly in a balloon, any balloon, but especially with any of those that I list on my links page, jump at it, you’ll have a great experience. All the Massachusetts commercial pilots I know of are VERY good pilots (you have to be to fly in the state that has the highest density of hardwood forests of any state in the US.) (However be aware of middleman ride discounters. Click Here for more details.) Many commercial pilots make their living ballooning
.
I, on the other hand, have a day job and ballooning is my hobby. . . No, that’s not right -ballooning is my obsession. I like to fly out of different That's my house just below the shadow of places and see different scenery. I love to do neat stuff like surprise flights, of the balloon -West West Cummington, MA
flights out of your back yard, flights where I take off from a location Fly over your house and take pictures.
designed to have us drift over your house, flights as the centerpiece of it from the balloon
of a wedding, of a party, business function, etc. There's a lot of sky
out there; I'd love to see it all.
It all started a few years ago. On a great flight from Worthington to Ashfield Todd proposed to Miriam
and she said yes. Weeks in the planning and with the support of the loyal
energetic Long View Crew this proposal went very well. Pictures of Todd & Miriam's flight flank this paragraph. On the
left we are taking off (she still doesn't know that the proposal is coming). On
the right is the champagne toast after landing, notice the ring on Miriam's
finger and both of their smiles Great flight. Great passengers. Good luck to Todd & Miriam.
Since that time, the crew and I have been involved in 6 more marriage proposal
flights (one that made all the national papers, TV, & radio stations) (I
declined to be interviewed by Inside Edition, the CBS Evening News and the slew
of radio stations that called, but I did
get interviewed by a radio station from New Zealand! (how could I pass that up?))
The Crew & I have developed a sort of technique for pulling it off and get such a
charge out of that extra element of the flight. Incidentally, all 7 of the women
asked said yes. I first posted the above pictures of Todd & Miriam on the
website on the afternoon of their flight and this is the e-mail I
got the next day:
Bill and Pete:
I can't thank you enough. What a perfect day to a new beginning. We enjoyed
every moment and like I said, it was worth every cent. Your personality and
humor made the day more enjoyable and allowed us to feel so comfortable. I
could not have asked for a better day. The whole way home we called friends and
family. Miriam just loved telling the story over and over. Thanks for the
website update. We are using that as our engagement announcement. You guys are
the greatest!!
Todd and Miriam
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What
Does a Customized Flight Cost??
I charge $500 per flight (which is normally* $250.00 per person). Where would you like to take off from? What would you like me to fly over? Since I am committed to offering personalized balloon adventures, please let me know what would make your adventure special. I’ll try to do whatever the weather and the geography will allow us to do safely.
Customized flying does not mean “extreme” flying, not at
all. But I do like an interesting and even adventurous flight. "Tree
whapping" is flying at the level of the treetops, so low that you
can pick leaves. A “splash and dash” maneuver is when
After taking off from a back yard in East you drop down to the surface of a pond or river and kiss the
Windsor CT, February 2002 surface with the basket. These are a few examples of what
I like to do.
* The $500 is normally for two people, but if you have a combination of, say, one adult and two kids or even two adults and a child that together do not weigh more than 425 lbs, I’ll take them all up at no extra charge. Also, if conditions are right, (and they MUST be right to do this safely), I will do a “hop flight” where I’ll land mid-flight and exchange passengers, giving four passengers the experience of two. (Again, no extra charge.)
More than two in your party??
Let's say there are six of you, or maybe ten that want to do a balloon outing.
You have a couple of choices. You can go to a balloon operator who can put a
lot of people in his/her basket (although in this immediate area I don't know anyone
who can carry more than eight (8) in one balloon). That can be fun as you'll all
be together....
OR ... You can contact us at Long View Ballooning and we can set up a little mini-balloon rally. We'll contact some of the other balloonists we know in the area and fly your group in several balloons. What a colorful special occasion that will be, especially when your flights will be set up according to the customized standards listed above. Flying with other balloons in the pattern adds to the excitement and thrill of the flight..
Tethered Events: Got a wedding reception, company picnic, anniversary party or other special event coming up. Think about having a hot air balloon tether as a centerpiece of the occasion. Tethered balloon flights take place with the balloon tied down at three points using Long View's special high strength tether lines. The balloon will rise up to about 120 feet. After a few minutes aloft we land and let new passengers in. We normally keep flying until almost all of the fuel has run out. Depending on outdoor temperature this can be anywhere from 1 1/2 hours to 2 1/2 hours. In this manner we have been able to give upwards of 100 people a ballooning experience that they will not soon forget. Tethering can only safely take place in the calmest winds and is best done just before sundown.
Fees for tethering (as long as the fuel lasts):
With no banners on the balloon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $ 900.00
With your banner(s) on the balloon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1,200.00
(See photo of the balloon with my friend Fritz's banner on on the photo page, we
can put on up to three 21' x 14' banners. Call for exact specifications.)
If the weather looks possible, I show up with full crew and then due to the weather
not co-operating I do not fly, we'll still get out the basket, hook up the burner
and do whatever show we can. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .$200.00
(The $200 is for the crew. If I decide not to fly for safety reasons, I keep nothing)
If we call it off before leaving home because the weather looks bad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .no charge
GPS Tracking: Ain't modern technology great! With our GPS system we can now not only track exactly where we are during the flight, but we can keep track of the exact path the balloon took during the flight. We can see our ground speed, elevation, direction, etc. What's the name of that road down there? What's that river? We can tell you. We can show it both overlaid onto a map, and shown in vertical profile as well. The map at the right is Dave and Wendy's 7/27/04 flight. Our GPS told us we took off at an elevation of 1220, reached an high of 4093 and landed at elevation 127. It also told us that at close to our highest elevation we also reached our maximum speed of 39 mph! This flight went from the Chesterfield Gorge (West Chesterfield, MA) to a field near the Oxbow in Easthampton, 15.12 miles. After we finish the flight, I'll print out your path and profile on an 8.5 x11 sheet of paper and mail it to you, so you can show your friends where you flew and how high. Neat, huh?
How'd you like to fly for free! Right at the moment I can think of three ways in which you can get a free balloon ride:
1. This may be the hardest: When we land we give out a "Landowner Appreciation Certificate" (along with the traditional bottle of champagne) to the landowner who has been nice enough to allow us to land on their property. The landowner simply fills in the certificate and sends it to us and once a year we have a drawing for a hot air balloon ride for two. Since we make a limited number of landings per year, each landowner has a good shot at flying. So you see, all you have to do is position your property where we're going to land . . . simple huh!!
2. Announcing the Contest for 2008. This contest is a test to see if anyone is really looking closely at this website. Here's what you do. Go to the Photo Gallery page. Look at the photos. In one of them we are standing next to a famous person that we met on our road trip to fly in the Balloon Festival in Gatineau Quebec. What is the name of that famous person?? Once you know the answer, e-mail me back (billvolk@westmass.com) and tell me what his name is. All correct answers go into the drawing for a free ride for two. Drawing will be held on 1/1/09. You should enter. Think about it. How many people stumble across this site - how many of them even get as far as reading this paragraph - how many of them will go to the photo page to find the answer - how many of them will then e-mail me back. Hardly any, maybe you'll be the only one. {As of 5/3/08 there have been only 13 contest applicants} (*See the numbers for 2007 below.)Easy contest to win! Free Ride must be taken either at any of the festivals we will attend or within a 50 mi. radius of West West Cummington MA. (Incidentally while you are looking at the photo check out our sexy new crew T-shirts, designed to instill confidence in our passengers.)
The 2007 contest was just like the contest above, except we asked you to name the monument the Long View balloon was flying over in Greenfield (photo in the third row of the photo gallery - left) The answer = It was the Greenfield Poets Seat. There were a total of 36 entries - And the winner (drum roll please) was:
Hollie O'Brien
Hollie (according to her e-mail salutation) is a "Forensic Analyst" with CVS. (I wonder what that means?!?) Her salutation also has an area 401 phone number (which unless I am mistaken is Rhode Island). She enters the winners circle and joins last year's winner Joseph Poor whose magical flight last summer landed at the Oxbow Marina (we did a splash and dash in front of the boats, flew over the boats and landed on the beach behind them)(The 2005 winner was Abbey O'Conner from South Hadley. Abbey & her husband flew at the Green River Festival in Greenfield in July 2006.
3. . . . to get a free ride - join the crew. Many of the Long View Balloon crew have flown as much as they've crewed. Crewing is a great way to get involved with hot air ballooning. Click here to go to the Join the Crew page. Don't forget to check out the links on that page to learn more about ballooning. Join the Long View Balloon Crew family and you won't even have to enter any contest or own a big hunk of land to get a ride.