The sky over Calgary is a favourite spot for balloon pilots

Before the sun is even up in Calgary, pilots with Sundance Balloons are getting ready for a flight.

"It's one of my favorite places in the world to fly," said pilot Mark Mitchell. "It's absolutely spectacular when you get to go over the countryside, it's also a very challenging place to fly and I enjoy that about flying balloons."

Mitchell is from southern Australia and has been flying for 20 years. He pilots the largest balloon Sundance flies: it holds 8,500 cubic metres of air (300,000 cubic feet) and a basket that can hold 11 passengers and one pilot. In a six-month season here when the wind is favourable, he'll make anywhere from 70 to 100 flights. Then he heads home to fly for the other six months of the year.

"Ballooning tends to be seasonal so I go back to Australia for summer and I come to Canada for a summer," he said. "In the winter it gets very difficult to fly, it gets too cold and the (client) demand tends to slow down a bit so we go where we can fly, basically, and that's why we're all from different places and that tends to be the life of a balloon pilot.

"We get to go some absolutely magical places all the way around the world."

'YOU'RE JUST WEIGHTLESS'

Jackie and Graydon Beckett along with their son and daughter got their balloon ride last Christmas and the four are joined by two other guests for an early morning flight.

"You're just weightless, you're just floating here, it's awesome," said Graydon. "There's a nice sunrise coming up so yeah it's really nice, good 360 (degree) view."

It's the family's first time in a balloon and Jackie says it's quiet and calm when the burner isn't heating the air inside and that hot air can easily lift the basket and passengers.

"That was very impressive," she said. "I was watching him as he was turning the gas on and it was crazy, it was hot and loud and a little scary at the same time but it's kind of cool."

Sebastian Msuya is a balloon pilot and also the operations manager at Sundance Balloons that operates out of eight locations across Canada.

He says balloons typically fly in a range from 150 metres to 450 metres.

"A lot of people don't realize that balloons are regulated through Transport Canada just like a plane or a helicopter," said Msuya, "So they're inspected and the pilots have actual pilot licenses and then we have to follow the rules and regulations as well so our minimums over built up area is 500 feet (150 metres) and then if we're within a control zone, an airport control zone, then they can ask us to go higher or lower."

Msuya says the wind determines the direction of flight and pilots will vary their altitude to 'steer' the balloon in the changing currents. But he says if it's too windy, balloons won't fly.

"The reason that we fly so early in the morning is that's generally when the winds are the calmest," he said. "Wind is the biggest determining factor in whether we fly or not, even if it just seems like a nice normal sunny day.

"It can (actualy) be too windy (to fly)," he said. "We also have to take into account the winds at the different altitudes so it might be calm on the ground - but 300 feet up, the wind could be drastically different in speed and direction so yeah, we really are cautious about making sure the winds are ideal."

Mitchell said piloting a balloon is sometimes referred to as three-dimensional sailing, that's because he changes altitude to find the different wind direction in those layers to make small directional changes. In October he's heading to Albuquerque New Mexico to fly alongside  650 other balloons. He says it's the biggest balloon event in the world.

"It's absolutely spectacular, I love it absolutely, it's one of my favorite things in the whole world to watch," he said. "I got to participate for the first time last year in the festival and I thought it was one of the most magical times I could have so I really enjoyed going down there and you know, when you've got all your friends and you got all the balloons.

"It just feels really good."

High River hosts its own annual International Balloon Festival at the end of September where the public can get close to balloons and watch the crews in action when they take off.

Learn more about Sundance Balloons here: https://www.sundanceballoons.com/