AvTalk Episode 314: World Champion Gas Ballooning

On this episode of AvTalk, we learning all about long endurance gas balloons with a world record holder. We learn more about the erroneous TCAS alerts that plagued aircraft near DCA at the beginning of March and what the FAA is doing following a fist fight in the DCA air traffic control tower. Heathrow’s chief continues to defend the airport’s handling of the power outage two weeks ago. And Russian investigators release their final report on Aeroflot flight 1492, which suffered a hard landing and subsequent fire during a diversion back to Moscow in 2019.
What does it take to fly a gas balloon from Germany to Scotland? We climb into the basket with Kolja Packard and Wuzi Wagner of the Austria 2 Gas Balloon Team to learn all about long endurance gas ballooning, what makes it challenging, and how you keep busy for days at a time a few thousand feet in the air.
Helpful links for this week’s episode

* FAA statement on changes at DCA air traffic control
* Final report on Aeroflot 1492
* Timelapse of Kolja and Wuzi’s flight from Germany to Scotland

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Please click here for a transcript of this episode.