The 41st Bristol International Balloon Festival is here and thousands of visitors will huddle in Bristol as spectators of this grand event.
This is the largest event associated with ballooning in Europe that arranges for four days long display involving more than 130 hot air balloons of varying colors gathered from all over the world.
A Darth Vader balloon touched the skies of Bristol for the very first time on Thursday morning after a campaign of crowd funding.
56 other balloons from countries like Japan and Taiwan accompanied its flight.
The Darth Vader balloon received greeting from cheering crowd moving in waves as it flew over the distinguished landmarks of the city including the historic harbor and the Clifton Suspension Bridge.
Friday morning is the regular time for commencing the flight of the balloons of this grand festival. But this year, owing to a forecast of the high winds and rains, the event started earlier.
Ian Martin co-piloted the flight of Darth Vader on Bristol, also takes care of the ballooning team of this event.
Martin with an experience of piloting over 150 Balloons, further mentioned that the other pilot, who is from Belgium and the main pilot of the event, co-piloted with Ian to make the flight possible as Martin had no previous experience of flying one Darth Vader.
Martin also added that the flight was an emotional moment for both of them owing to the hard work they did to make the flight flawless that morning.
Martin expressed his gratitude on behalf of both of them towards the crowd for being supportive.
He further added that people were much excited and some even followed the entire way of the flight to reach the landing spot.
A substantial amount of £5,000 was raised by the supporters who wished the Darth Vader to appear in Bristol’s skies.
Cameron Balloons of Bristol made this balloon in 2007, but never attempted to fly it across the city sky, despite its successful flights in the United States, Australia, Malaysia, and China.
The funds raised herein will be used to support the festival which costs the organizers around £750,000 every year without making any profits.
Post this event; a Facebook post mentioned the event as ‘Darth is home’ on the Balloon’s page.
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