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Up, up and away!
The thought of walking across a beam from one hot air balloon to another, at a height of 5,790 metres, would scare the wits out of anyone. Mike Howard however, is an exception.
- By Shiva Kumar Thekkepat, Feature Writer, Friday
- Published: 23:51 January 15, 2009
- Mike Howard performed the feat, which was broadcast on the FOX-TV series Guinness World Records.
- Image Credit: Supplied Picture
The thought of walking across a beam from one hot air balloon to another, at a height of 5,790 metres, would scare the wits out of anyone. Mike Howard however, is an exception.
The Emirates pilot, who half-jokingly says his part-time hobby is working as an airline pilot while his full-time activity is ballooning, has performed these kinds of stunts too many times to have kept count. And he will do them again if anybody asks him to! "I am absolutely hooked on flying
and doing stunts," he says.
This is not surprising when you discover that Howard started flying in balloons at the age of 10. "My father was a balloonist and I'd go up with him as a boy," he says. He got his ballooning licence at 17 – the youngest person to get one at that time. "I was fortunate as there were very few children around at that time interested in this sort of thing. I got my flying licence before I got my driving licence," he says.
He has since travelled around the world ballooning. "I've flown balloons over almost every continent. I've flown over Japan, the US, Canada, England, Malaysia, the UAE and Australia – it's taken me around the world," he says. "I was very lucky to get into it. It's the major part of my life and I get to travel around the world as a result.
I've just come back from the world championships and the oldest pilot who participated was in his eighties and the youngest was around 20! So, now it's everybody's sport," says Howard. Howard doesn't think the rising popularity of ballooning could be because it is not visibly dangerous.
"You might not consider it to be a dangerous sport like parachuting, for instance. It's quite safe, but it can give you an adrenaline rush. It is also quite an expensive sport, so that might stop people from getting involved. You need to have a team to go ballooning. Expense is probably the biggest factor holding young people back from joining the sport."
According to Howard, ballooning is not about heights. "You can fly to 3,700 metres – you're not restricted by the balloon, you're restricted by the lack of oxygen. Generally, we fly at about 900 metres. We flew at the world championships at about 2,100 metres because we wanted the wind to take us to our destination. But most of our flying is done at under 300 metres so we can really enjoy the topography."
Howard recommends ballooning for those interested in team sports. "You need a team of at least one or two people: a person who flies the balloon and a person to drive
the vehicle with the trailer. It's a social sport, so you take your friends and family along – around five or six people."
For Howard, ballooning is essentially a social activity. His wife Renee and his young daughter Cydnee also fly with him. He met his wife on a ballooning trip. "It's not impossible to fly alone," he says. "I've taken a balloon, inflated it myself, taken off and landed by myself and hitch-hiked back to my car, but it's a long and lonely process.
I prefer ballooning as a group activity. It's a good family sport and a chance to get together and have fun. For me it's very much a family affair. Our wonderful daughter is very helpful – she gets in the way as much as she possibly can!
She tells me how to fly, how to turn and when to land throughout the trip.
When we're flying in competitions we have to drop markers over the targets and she always wants to do it. She's a very active young pilot!"
Howard moved to Dubai a year ago when he joined Emirates. A chance meeting with Amit Pande, assistant general manager of ETA's Star Events set him off on his second career in ballooning. "Star Events have all the balloons and organise the Dubai Balloon Festival, so I felt it was time to team up with them," he explains. "It's a fledgling company and when it comes to ballooning my role is as an adviser.
I also help in training their pilots. I've set up similar companies in places such as Malaysia, so I have the experience."
Are there any differences in flying balloons in the UK and the UAE? "Desert is probably the key word here," he says. "There are lots of places to land. However, if you land in the middle of the desert you won't have a vehicle coming to get you anytime soon. So, you have to plan your flight, take the direction of the wind into account so you can land near to your ride home.
In the UK you don't have that problem – you can just land in the middle of a field. Although, I have landed in a place in the UK where there were no roads. The terrain and temperatures are completely different and of course you don't see many cows and sheep in the UAE. But I did come across a giraffe one day while flying quite low over a private zoo."
The flying season in the UAE is from mid-October to the end of May, says Howard. "Although you can fly in summer we tend not to as it is just too hot. But we will fly in the mornings when it's generally very pleasant. We leave half an hour before sunrise – it's the calmest time of day. "Occasionally we fly in the evenings when the winds have calmed down.
But in the UAE a sea breeze can stir things up in the evenings, so we tend to stick to mornings." What really gives Howard pleasure is being one with nature. "There have been times when the wind's direction has changed and I have been totally at the mercy of the elements," he says.
"The thing about ballooning is that the weather is so changeable that the only thing that is certain is that the weather will throw a curve ball at you! You expect to do one thing and you will usually have to do something completely different." Flying is his whole life and Howard wouldn't want it any other way. "Everything I do is related to flying.
I paraglide, I skydive and I used to fly light aircraft. It was a natural progression for me to progress to flying commercial airplanes. I fly the most sophisticated aircraft in the world, which has thousands of back-up systems; it's the safest way to travel. Ballooning is the complete opposite.
I have to concentrate on safety and make decisions on the trot. I get a lot of pleasure out of it. But both fields of flying complement each other.
We never use maps in ballooning, we only use GPS and laptops and that comes from my experience as an airline pilot. However, in ballooning, there is no autopilot function; there is no second pilot to rely on if you do something wrong.
"Flying is so surreal that it's difficult to describe. You are standing in a wicker basket and the world is moving below you and yet there's no sensation of movement. I'm at one with the air," he says. "If you closed your eyes, you wouldn't know you were flying.
The movement is so gentle. It's as if somebody has lifted you off the earth and is moving you gently." Is fear a factor for Howard while doing stunts up in the air? "Fear keeps you sharp and alert," he answers.
"I don't think I take any risks; I think I take calculated chances. A risk is something you do without knowing all the facts. We look at what we're trying to achieve and try to eliminate as much of the danger as we can. If you are not aware of the fear then you put yourself in danger. I'm no braver than the next person. I just have some sound ideas with years of experience to back me."
Howard is serious about putting the UAE on the ballooning map. "My long-term goal is to create a UAE team to take part in international competitions," he says. "It's my way of returning the knowledge and experience that I've gained through training others."
Howard is still looking for sponsors for this endeavour. "We need a patron who will back us and take it to the next level. We need to get Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) recognition. FAI is the world governing body for all aviation sports and aeronautical world records. Only then will we be able to start submitting a team for competitions. But first we have to create a team. It can be anybody who has an interest in ballooning and wants to get involved.
My long-term dream is to put together a team involving UAE nationals. There's no reason why we can't put the UAE on the aero sport map."
– Shiva Kumar Thekkepat is Feature Writer, Friday
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