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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lkdood" data-source="post: 11160294" data-attributes="member: 92282">Sri Lanka Saturday launched hot air ballooning over Colombo with daily  flights scheduled from November as part of plans to boost leisure  activities in the city and attract both local and foreign tourists.  Adventure Asia, the only  hot air balloon operator in the island has been servicing commercial  balloon flights in the central areas of Dambulla, Sigiriya and Habarana  since 2003.   With the decade’s long conflict with the Tamil Tigers ending in May  2009, the skies above Colombo have opened up for civil aviation and  tourism promoters are looking for ways to increase leisure activities in  the City.  Organizers say hot air ballooning could be one way of making tourists spend more time in Colombo.  “We are looking at daily flights for tourists who are breaking journey  in Colombo and for others that stopover in Colombo for some shopping  after their holiday”, Vijitha Welikala, Chairman of Adventure Asia said.    “One of the biggest problems for tourists is that there aren’t enough  excursions in Colombo. A traveler coming to Colombo for a second time  gets board”  “Now we are giving a different dimension to Colombo where they can see Colombo from a birds eye view”, Welikala said.  Several take off  points near Colombo have been identified for ballooning including the  ground of the Open University in Nawala.  Last week a tethered balloon flight lifted guests few meters up from the  launch site at Water’s Edge; a hotel bordering Colombo as the wind  condition was unfavourable for a fuller flight planned north east over  the skies of Colombo.      <img src="http://www.lbo.lk/newsimages/11lbooct17balloon.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /> A balloon basket can carry sixteen passengers and flights are likely to  be scheduled between six to seven O’clock in the mornings when the winds  are calm.   The best time for ballooning is considered to be within 2 hours of sunrise or two hours of sunset.  A balloon rises when there is more hot air inside the balloon than is on  the outside of the balloon. To help keep the balloon in the air and  rising, hot air needs to be propelled upwards using a burner.  The balloon can be brought down to the ground by opening the parachute  valve at the very top of the balloon allowing hot air escape decreasing  the inner air temperature. The cooling air slows the balloon’s climb.  Hot air ballooning could be a relaxed way of passing time but the adventure is that your destination is unknown.  “Everybody likes to fly but flying with a motorized engine and destinations known is not very adventurous” Welikala said.  “The beauty of ballooning is that you don’t know your destination but  you know the direction and then you got to totally surrender to the laws  of nature,” he said.   “In Habarana where we have been flying for eight years, we have never in  the hundreds of flights we have done landed on the same place twice. It’s always a different spot”, Peter Stewart, the Managing Director of  Adventure Asia said.  “Our pilots often comment that Sri Lanka due to its diverse and  beautiful landscape is among the top five destinations in which they  love to fly” he said.LBO</blockquote>

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