About Time Hot Air Balloon Team

26/12/2023

NORAD's Santa Tracker started on this day in 1955 with a simple typo.

"A local Sears store in Colorado Springs ran a dial Santa ad in 1955. However, the number was a misprint. Instead of listing the number for Sears' Santa hotline, it posted the number for the Continental Air Defense Command Center.

On Christmas Eve 1955, Colonel Harry Shoup began receiving calls while working at NORAD from kids asking to speak with Santa Claus.
Instead of telling the kids that they dialed the wrong number, Shoup said that he wasn't Santa Claus but he could track him on radar.

All night, Shoup and his team fielded calls, giving kids details about Santa's location as he and his reindeer flew through the sky to deliver gifts to children."

This is how a tradition was born. NORAD opened its lines for Santa Tracking every year since.

23/11/2023

Happy Thanksgiving! I’d fly it but I don’t want to pack it up!

30/10/2023

Hoping to be flying in SW Florida soon but here’s a few pictures from Bloomington, In. This past weekend.

24/09/2023

About time playing with Puddy cat in Lebanon, Ky!

19/09/2023

Happy talk like a pirate day!

11/03/2023

We’re showing off a few shapes in Dublin, Ga today.

11/03/2023

Candlestick glow

19/02/2023

Edison Festival of Light

18/02/2023

Not sure about flying a balloon right now!🤣

25/12/2022

Merry Christmas

20/09/2020

Thank you to the montgolfiere brothers for all the fun and joy we enjoy now!

Happy anniversary of the birth of ballooning! Brought to you by the Montgolfiere brothers in France!

On 19 September 1783, their balloon Aerostat Réveillon was flown with the first (non-human) living creatures in a basket attached to the balloon: a sheep called Montauciel ("Climb-to-the-sky"), a duck and a rooster.[15][16] The sheep was believed to have a reasonable approximation of human physiology. The duck was expected to be unharmed by being lifted aloft. It was included as a control for effects created by the aircraft rather than the altitude. The rooster was included as a further control as it was a bird that did not fly at high altitudes. This demonstration was performed before a crowd at the royal palace in Versailles, before King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette.[15] The flight lasted approximately eight minutes, covered two miles (3 km), and obtained an altitude of about 1,500 feet (460 m). The craft landed safely after flying.[15] (from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ballooning)