Destinations

A Hot Air Ballooon Tour

By Catherine Viette It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a hot-air balloon. 

Wishing to see the French countryside from a different perspective, I jumped at the chance to rise into the air in a hot-air balloon.  Being a total ballooning novice, I entrusted my maiden voyage to the pilot and co-owner of Montigolfière hot-air balloons, Jean Mayerhoeffer.

It turns out that I couldn’t have picked a better teacher.  Mayerhoeffer picked me up in Paris, and during the hour-long drive to the airfield in Maintenon (approximately 70 km west of Paris) I peppered our conversation with questions—such as, what exactly is the difference between hot-air balloons and gas balloons?  For the record, hot-air balloons use nylon fabric and have tanks to pump in the lighter hot air, causing the balloon to rise.  Gas balloons usually are made with rubber, which makes the balloon watertight, and use a gas such as helium or hydrogen, which are both lighter than air to make the balloon lift off.  I also got a crash course in ballooning history, learning that in 1783 the Montigolfière brothers sent up the first hot-air balloon.

Mayerhoeffer was not always a balloonist; he started as more of a balloon enthusiast:  “At work I used to see the balloons in the sky and one day I decided to get lessons from a balloonist.”  This turned out to be a new chapter in Mayerhoeffer’s life.  “I train and I get my license and one day the job I got for 20 years stopped and instead of looking for another job, I turned my hobby into my job.”  He adds, “My boss now is the wind.”  I catch him looking skyward. “I am always looking at the smoke,” he says, “the leaves of the trees, checking the wind.”

I also learned that there is no such thing as steering a hot-air balloon.  “We can go and that is all,” Mayerhoeffer replied when I asked him where we would end up. As we sped through the French countryside, he filled me in on the points of interest and told me a little about what I could expect to see and feel during the ride.  He told me that since the balloon travels at the same speed as the wind, there would be no sensation of a breeze blowing my hair about.  To go up in a hot-air balloon is to “discover the sensation of walking in the air,” said Mayerhoeffer.  I couldn’t wait to get into that basket.

But first there was the very necessary step of consulting the weather reports.  “You can go or you can’t, that’s all,” Mayerhoeffer explained philosophically as he checked and rechecked the current weather conditions and wind speeds.  “I am never sure to fly until I am in my basket,” he added.  On the day of our trip overcast conditions had Mayerhoeffer triple-checking the “météo” as he calls it.  Since nylon is not waterproof, a rainstorm can drop a hot-air balloon out of the sky, like an apple falling from a tree.  The rain turns the hot air cold, thus removing the buoyancy, and down comes the balloon like a lead weight.  Mayerhoeffer tells me that flights take off in the early morning or the late evening because mid-day air is too unstable for flights.

After deciding that Mother Nature would hold the rains off for the length of the balloon ride, Mayerhoeffer and his partner went to work setting up the balloon.  Watching a balloon fill with hot air is a bit like watching a sleeping monster awaken.  As the air fills the balloon, it seems to come alive, roiling and billowing, being buffeted by winds internal and external.  As the balloon rolls from side to side,  I fear that it will flatten me, and I quickly move to a safer distance to watch the sleeping giant come to life.

With the balloon ready and Mayerhoeffer aboard, I quickly climb into the basket--and up we go.  The ascent is gradual and very smooth.  There is no rocking or swaying in the basket.  Mayerhoeffer’s basket can hold four people in addition to the pilot, but on the day I go up it is just the two of us.  The view is spectacular, and the experience actually takes my breath away.  I can see the Château Maintenon and the old aqueduct below me.  We continue to rise up to 1,000 feet.  I feel no wind at all.  It is very calm and tranquil--peaceful even.  It is, I think, as close to feeling like a bird as man can get.  We are gliding on the wind, watching the scenery change below.  Mayerhoeffer says that going up in a hot-air balloon “gives the impression of being in another world, you can walk in the basket and be in touch with the elements.”  I felt very in touch with the world around me.

But as the laws of nature state, what goes up must come down.  So come down we did, needing to land before it started to rain hard.  One of the things that delights Mayerhoeffer about ballooning is that each flight is different.  “You never land in the same place,” he said.  We landed in a flat, open field.  The descent was not quite as smooth as the take-off.  There are handgrips to grasp, and it is important to brace yourself and hang on tight.  I was too busy looking around and was caught a bit off guard on the landing. 

Packing up is as labor-intensive as getting ready.  All the air must be let out and the balloon rolled back up.  The tanks must be turned off and the basket loaded back onto the trailer, to await another trip on another day.

On the return trip to Paris, I asked him why he thinks so many people want to go up in a hot-air balloon.  “I think it is a lesson of modesty,” said Mayerhoeffer.  “Human beings want to direct everything, and with a balloon you direct nothing.  The balloon goes where the wind wants.”

You must reserve in advance.

Summer flights leave at 7:30 a.m. and flights last approximately one hour.
Check the website for current prices.
Contact: Jean Mayerhoeffer 16, rue d’Arcueill 94250 Gentilly 01 49 69 04 22 or Mob: 06 16 11 05 07
jeanmontgolfiere@noos.fr