High River hepped up for hot air balloon festival

To declare a champion, there usually has to be at least two flights and three tasks completed.

Hot air balloon pilots from all over the world are in High River this weekend for the third annual Heritage Inn International Balloon Festival.

Over two dozen pilots and their support staff arrived on Wednesday and made their first flights on Thursday.

The festival attracts teams from around the world and Canadians competing at the event will be vying for the Canadian National Championship.

“Yeah North America. South America will be the first time this year. I’ve been to South Africa, I’ve been to China, Thailand, Japan, Malaysia, all over Europe, I mean it’s an interesting thing,” said Peter Van Overwalle from Belgium.

The winner of the Canadians will go on to fly at the Worlds in Saga, Japan next year.

“The winner and the second place person will qualify to participate in Japan for the World Championships so it has a lot of stuff going on here and the guys get pretty intense at the competitive level,’ said Events Committee Chairman, Jamie Kinghorn.

The competition requires participants to complete one or more tasks and whoever amasses the most points during the event is declared the winner.

Organizers are planning for seven flights depending on the weather and pilots will steer their balloons by changing altitude to take advantage of the different wind layers.

Anyone who has lived in southern Alberta for a time knows that the wind here can be unpredictable and that can be a challenge for pilots.

Dale Lang is from Taber and has been a balloon pilot for 41 years.

“Balloon pilots are used to the fact that you can go anywhere and the weather can be bad and we get used to that reality, so they kind of understand it. The three or four days that preceded our event , the weather was perfect, but this is southern Alberta and five minutes later it can be a totally different picture right?” said Lang.

The Heritage Inn International Balloon Festival goes from September 23 – 27, 2015.

For more information on the event, click HERE.