Hummingbird Balloon Visit

Inflating the balloon

Filling it with the gas heated air

Wow! This is big!

Good morning!

This week it is Balloons over Waikato.  Firth School was very lucky to have the Hummingbird visit us today.  We had to be at school by 7.30am to see it go up!!  Poor Mums an Dads!  It was very interesting watching it go up.  First they roll out the balloon on the grass and then inflated it with cold air.  Once it was upright they used burning propane gas to get the heat.  That made the bird sit up!!  Then they tethered it to the ute so that it would not fly away.  Mrs Malligan and Mrs T-B got to have a liitle ride in it.  They waved with excitement.  Then the children were allowed to go and have a closer look.  How amazing.  It was soooooo big.  The beak sometimes looked as if it was going to come down and peck us. While they were bringing the balloon down and packing it away we had breakfast.  Then we went to assembly and Doug the pilot came to talk to us.  He told us all about the first balloons that were made and how they now make modern balloons out of nylon or dacron.  The hummingbird balloon was made in Peru by an Italian.  Then it went to New Mexico where he is from.  He had been to about 11 countries with it.  This is the first time he has brought it to New Zealand.   Weren't we lucky to have it come to our school!!