Thomas og Philip i FL 270

Hot Air Ballooning to Flight Level 270 (27.079 feet, 8.253 meters).

Yesterday Philip and I finally did it. Weather was fantastic. Permission from local authorities was in place. Almost no other planes up there. Very friendly traffic controllers, we only had to talk on one frequency throughout the flight. And our equipment had been ready for years.

We took off from Bagsværd 17:30 local time, three hours before sunset. We climbed for one and a half hour reaching 27.079 feet on QNH 1013. This equals 8.253 meters. Actual QNH was 1031 so actual reached altitude was almost 500 feet higher. Max. recorded GPS altitude was 8.419 meters.

We landed west of Ringsted 2:30 hours after take off. Together with three other balloons!

Our balloon, OY-SOK, is a Camaron N145, 145.000 cubic feet with almost 100 hours logged. We took of with six 80 liter bottles and were using the fourth bottle on landing. We inhaled pure oxygen from take off until back below FL125. We brought spare radio, spare transponder, spare oxygen system, spare altimeter, safety parashutes and a lot of other equipments. But we forgot coffee!

Envelope temperature was never above 85 degrees celsius.

Thanks to Morten for crewing. And thanks to Eskild for help setting up the balloon.