• Question: How do you control the movement of hot air balloons?

    Asked by khughes08 to Hermine, Katy, Laura, Nathalie, Paula on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Paula Salgado

      Paula Salgado answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      As far as I understand it, in terms of vertical movement, it has to do with how much hot air you allow in the balloon. The more hot air you allow in, the higher it will go.

      When it comes to the horizontal direction the balloon goes, it’s all about wind currents. As you go up and down, you get different currents, so you choose the ones that drive the balloon in the direction you want to go.

      Hope that helps! 😉

    • Photo: Nathalie Pettorelli

      Nathalie Pettorelli answered on 14 Jun 2010:

      Hi there,
      Well you can’t totally – you can control flying height though, and combine it with wind to try to get there… 🙂

    • Photo: Katy Mee

      Katy Mee answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Well i’ve been a bit late answering my questions today so I’m someone else has explained that hot air is less dense than cold air, hence heating the balloon makes it rise, blah, blah, blah.

      Don’t think you can steer them though, so it’s probably worth checking what’s downwind of you before setting off…..

    • Photo: Hermine Schnetler

      Hermine Schnetler answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Well a hot air balloon operates through the force known as buoyancy. So hot air is less dense than the air around us and will therefore rise (float) until it reaches a point where the density is equal. By placing this in the ballon canvas we cause the ballon to rise. We can control the amount of hot air that goes in and out of the balloon through a valve. We can release hot air to drop the balloon and add hot air to make the balloon rise. Now to move in the horizontal axis you need to know the direction of the wind at different altitudes, so you rise and drop to the altitude with the wind blowing in the direction you choose to go for it to move you that way. Wind blows at different directions varying heights.

    • Photo: Laura Dixon

      Laura Dixon answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      The controls for ‘driving’ the hot air balloon are for vertical (up and down) movement. A flame heats the air that fills the balloon, you can open the propane valve to make the flame bigger (go up – hot air rises) or release some of the hot ait from the balloon to go lower. Going horizontal (left and right) is trickier. Wind blows in different directions at different heights (I have no idea why!) so a good balloon pilot will know what height to be at to get pushed left or right by the wind 🙂

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