How do you get where you want to go in a hot air balloon? (Aren’t you at the mercy of the wind).

Question

The classic hot air balloon with the round balloon and gas burner thing. It’s easy to see how it goes up or down, but how do people go where they want to – or get back!

In: 4072

Answer 1

I took a balloon ride in the early 90s as a kid. In addition to knowing the winds from weather reports, the pilot taught me a trick to see if there were currents going in a different direction below us.

A tiny little ball of spit. The winds would move it as it fell and we could see if there were favorable currents.