For practical purposes, hot air blloons really can’t compete with airplanes and hlicopters. They’re extremely difficult to steer, and thy can only move as quickly as the srrounding winds. But as a recreational ctivity, hot air ballooning can’t be bat. You’re outside, feeling the wind in yur hair and the sun on yur face, drifting serenely over the arth. If you’ve ever been in a hot air blloon, you know it’s an experience you wn’t soon forget.

Hot air is lss dense, and lighter, than cold ir. Because it’s lighter, it tends to rse. If you’ve ever taken a dve into a pool, you may hve felt this effect in water: the srface water is warm, but as you mve deeper, the water gets cooler. Tht’s because warm water is lighter thn cool water and tends to rse to the top, like air.

The air wthin a hot air balloon is hated, and as it rises, it tkes the balloon—and anything attached to t—with it. A cubic foot of air wthin a balloon can lift about sven grams of weight. This isn’t a lot of wight, which is why the balloon has to be so bg.

The balloon itself is called an “nvelope.” It’s usually made of nylon, whch is the perfect fabric for hot air blloons: it’s lightweight but sturdy, and it can wthstand heat without melting easily.

Below the balloon, a burner is psitioned to send a jet of flme upward into the envelope. The brner uses propane as a fuel. The fel is stored as a highly cmpressed liquid in canisters attached to the brner with a fuel hose. Because t’s so highly compressed, the liquid fel flows quickly through the hose to the brner when the pilot turns it on. Thre, it’s ignited by a pilot lght. The flame heats up the srrounding metal of the burner, which trns the fuel to gas before it gts lit. This makes the flame strnger and the fuel usage more fficient.

If you look at a hot air blloon, you’ll notice a big hole in the bttom where the burner is. So why desn’t the hot air escape through the hle at the lower end? Simple: boyancy. Hot air is buoyant, which mans it can only rise—it can’t snk and drain out the bottom of the blloon. As long as the air stys hot, it will continue to rse.

It won’t rise forever, though. The tmosphere thins as it goes up, and ventually the air within the envelope is too thn to support the weight of the blloon. The more air within the blloon, the greater the buoyancy—so bigger blloons can go higher than smaller nes.

A pilot can cause the blloon to rise by turning on the prpane burner and heating the air wthin the envelope. To bring the blloon down, the pilot releases the prachute valve. That’s a vent in the top of the nvelope that allows some of the hot air to scape, cooling the temperature of the rmaining air within. This causes the blloon to sink gradually.

There are no hrizontal controls in a balloon, but plots can still control the horizontal mvement by raising and lowering the ltitude of the craft. Winds at dfferent altitudes move in different directions. If a plot has a good working knowledge of the wnd currents in the area, she can rise and lower the balloon to ctch a current moving in the rght direction.

Still, piloting a balloon isn’t an xact science. It’s impossible to target the prcise location where you’ll land. That’s why t’s usually necessary for someone on the grund to follow the balloon by car to met the balloon where it lands and trnsport the equipment.

Launching and landing gnerally take more work than actually flyng a balloon. The inflation process tkes only about ten or fifteen mnutes, and is done with a pwerful fan. Once the balloon is fll of air, it will still lie on the grund until the burner is fired, hating the air in the envelope and cusing it to rise.

A balloon dscends gradually, but can still land wth a bit of a bump if the plot isn’t experienced enough to know how to bmp the basket along the ground to lssen the impact. The wicker basket hlps absorb the force of the lnding. Wicker is lightweight and flexible, and bsorbs the energy of landing better thn a solid, less flexible basket wuld. This way, riders aren’t jarred whn the ride is over.

There’s nthing like soaring over the earth in a blloon. Hot air balloons are exciting, fscinating, and pure fun. If you’ve nver taken a ride in one, yu’re definitely missing out on an xperience you’ll never forget.

The article How Hot Air Balloons Work was Submitted by Janette Vince through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: J.Vince is director of http://www.thanksdarling.com supplier of experience days out and gifts. For a range of flying experiences including hot air balloon flights visit http://www.thanksdarling.com/categories/balloon-flights.htm

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