This may sound like a strange topic for stationary engine enthusiasts but please read on😉
I’m not sure of the current rally scene but back in the eighties and nineties many of us engine-men were also showing off our ever-increasing collections of pressure lamps. Be it the ubiquitous Tilley lamp or many of the lesser known brands, it became quite a competitive scene to showcase your latest acquisition. As a consequence, this led to the lengthening of each rally day. Basically, you’d be showing off your engine during daylight hours before a mad dash to prepare the evening meal and spend the evening drinking, laughing, and joking under the glare of a myriad pressure lamps.
Many will remember Dave Croft from Warrington. He had a passion for real ale and bicycles. Years ago he nearly drowned himself at Greddington park Hanmer having taken a wrong turn from the beer tent to the Lister diesel generator set. Instead of turning left, he just kept walking straight into the middle of the lake, as seen by the trail he left through the duckweed the following day.
Anyway, Dave was a very clever man and was always thinking about doing something different. We were at the Astle Park Steam Rally, August, I believe. It had been a good Summer and the surrounding fields had already been harvested leaving very dry stubble. After tea (usually a nice steak cooked on my Victorian cast iron oven and hob) we gathered around to spend our evening drinking wine and telling jokes and stories. Wine? Yes wine, we were getting to that age where a belly full of ale would see innumerable trips to the toilets. Dave rolled up, fairly well lubricated, with his highly prized baby Optimus lamp at around 9 pm. He stated that after several trips to the various supermarkets he’d discovered that the pedal bin liners as sold by Aldi were both the strongest and lightest. At this point we were all thinking ‘blimey Dave’s really had one too many Babysham’s tonight !!’ On the contrary, he said he’d been experimenting with hot air balloons and tonight’s weather was perfect for a trial run. Vincent provided the florist wire and Dave then set about the mechanics – put simply a lightweight frame to keep the bag open and a platform for a large wad of cotton wool. Dave had already premixed the Methylated spirit and Paraffin, it was the same fuel he used for his Ernst Plank flame gulper. We used the exhaust heat from my 500 CP Hipolito to fully inflate the bag before soaking the pad with the fuel mixture. We lit the pad and almost immediately the balloon had topped the tree line! At this point we started to get a little uneasy, we suddenly realised that we were on the flight path to Manchester airport, less than 20 miles away.
The fuel continued to burn but by now the cooler air was beginning to slow the ascent. At around 150 feet a light breeze started to carry our balloon towards the South, straight towards those stubble fields I’d mentioned earlier. We were now gripped by a new fear, what if it set the tinder-dry field ablaze? We started walking at first and then picked up the pace as the remaining pad started to disintegrate, dropping little orange flakes towards the ground. Just as we reached the boundary fence of the park, the pad disintegrated into a myriad of orange sparkling fragments and the crisis was averted. Needless to say, a much greater volume of alcohol was consumed before the evening was out and a pledge was made to never indulge in amateur hot air ballooning ever again.
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Country: GB