Navigating the ‘Small World’

Extract

Colin Mudie was navigator of the ‘Small World’ transatlantic ballooning expedition and designer and maker of the ‘gondola’ in which the voyage was completed by sea after the balloon was forced down. Besides Mudie the crew, as many will know, consisted of his wife Rosemary, Arnold Eiloart and his son Timothy.

To be the navigator of a balloon is somewhat of a contradiction, for an aerostat or balloon travels only with the wind. Once it is airborne, navigation, in the sense of controlling or directing its path or course, becomes extremely limited. It is possible to search, by ascending or descending, for a wind-stream in another direction but the wastage of gas and ballast involved makes this impracticable for a flight of any duration. It is also possible to produce some slight effect on the down-wind course of the balloon by slowing its speed by means of a drag and using the resultant wind to slew the envelope sideways. A paravane might also be used over water, but the overall effect would be unlikely to amount to more than a few degrees. In fact the only time that the balloon navigator has any real choice of direction is at take-off, when he can either go with the existing breeze or stay put. Thus it is that for the balloon navigator more than any other perhaps the greater part of the navigation is done beforehand with reference to the wind forecasts and meteorological charts.