'Flying in a hot air balloon is so, so peaceful'

Jon London said he developed a passion for aviation from an early age

A flight operations officer will soon be taking to the Norwich skyline having qualified to pilot a hot air balloon.

Jon London, who is from the city, said he has had a passion for aviation since an early age and recently qualified as a hot air balloon flyer, having spent time in Italy to accrue his hours to be eligible for his licence.

To be able to pilot the balloon he must have undertaken 16 hours of flying, completed a solo flight and a general flight test - a process he said was similar to a driving test.

He added: "I've been learning since before Covid, I started in 2019 and then Covid hit which didn't help matters... I've come to Italy to finish it."

Mr London said that over the past 18 months in Norfolk it has either been "too wet or too windy" to take off

While Mr London is familiar with the aviation industry, he said that it was when he helped a friend with their hot air balloon that he "just got the bug".

He added that while flying a balloon was weather dependant, over the past 18 months in Norfolk it has either been "too wet or too windy" to take off.

Although he said 16 hours of flying "doesn't sound a lot" during the summer months, they would be in the air for about an hour at a time.

He said: "For steerage wise we control that by the height, different heights have different winds... although we can't steer the balloon with a steering wheel, like you can with a car or in a conventional aircraft, you can climb and ascend to get the different directions that we require."

The flight operations officer recently qualified as a hot air balloon pilot

'Views are amazing'

The hot air balloon Mr London flies was manufactured in the 1990s by a company called Anglian Balloons, and it features a silhouette of Norwich Castle and Norwich Cathedral.

He said: "This particular balloon came up for sale, being Norwich born and bred it just had to be bought."

While he said a career change was not on the immediate horizon, he hoped to be flying across the Norfolk skyline "very soon", when he had returned from Italy. He added that flying was "so, so peaceful".

"When you're not burning, you're sitting at 1,000 feet [and] you can still hear dogs barking [and] the birds - especially flying back at home in Norfolk.

"You can just see the whole of the Norfolk coastline from King's Lynn all the way through to Great Yarmouth and down to Felixstowe in Suffolk, the views are just amazing," he said.