Since the1980s when I was fortunate to have friends who were experienced Alpine Balloonists, I have been sporadically visiting the small Alpine village of Filzmoos one hour to the south east of Salzburg. Like many Alpine resorts Filzmoos was looking for a way to increase hotel occupancy in the quiet spell between Christmas and the ski season and so the Alpine ballooning season became a “thing”. This is where I first learned about flying in the Alps, which I later put to good use flying various balloons in Austria and Switzerland. Not only do I enjoy flying in the Alps, but doing so also fulfils the requirement of flying every 90 days, a requirement of my commercial pilots license, hence the Busman’s Holiday in the Austrian Alps.
This year Hugh Savage and his family, Val, Elouise and Alice and my family, Libby and Georgina, joined Pete Forster for the first week of the 2 week Filzmoos meet. We were fortunate enough to get a couple of flights in during a week of mixed weather, we also did a few walks to some Alpine restaurants and a horse drawn sleigh ride. On the first flight Pete flew Hugh Savage and his family from the Launch site in Filzmoos to the nearby village of Annaberg, while Val and I drove retrieve. On the second flight Pete flew Georgina, Val and I. Our flight took us from Filzmoos to the countryside just to the west of Gmunden. Our flight lasted 1 hour 40 minutes, our highest altitude was 9430 ft.
These days it is all a bit easier than it was in the 1980s, WhatsApp send my location is certainly a very helpful feature, Pete’s Skoda is a lot more comfortable than my Defender used to be, although probably not as capable in deep snow! The Hot Air App on my iPad makes navigation easy and is also very informative, making flying much more relaxing. It wasn’t as cold this year as in past years, but more snow was falling as we left for the airport. It’s still a winter wonderland and a beautiful place to go ballooning!
The pictures were taken during our flight from Filzmoos to Gmunden on January 16th
