Bath is a top place to take a hot air balloon flight, and there are a series of Guinness World Records that involve hot air balloons. If you’re an ambitious and skilled balloonist, you could try your own Guinness record attempt with a hot air balloon in Bath – but doing so is certainly not for the faint-hearted!
Entrepreneur Richard Branson holds records for long distance hot air balloon rides, but there is no distance record that starts from Bath. Maybe somebody could set one?
Brent Fraser, an American, decided that he wanted to hold the world record for catching a grape in the mouth that fell from the longest distance. For his record attempt, a colleague dropped grapes from a hot air balloon. Many of the grapes were blown by the wind and did not fall near Fraser. Others hit him in the face causing considerable pain. Eventually, he caught a grape in his mouth dropped from 101 feet.
His catch was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records, which gave him a certificate for his grape catching world record. You could try to beat this using a hot air balloon above Bath’s Victoria Park, but you would probably end up with a sore and juice-soaked face!
Zip rides can be exciting and exhilarating, but are usually safe. The Guinness Book of Records has one for the highest altitude zipwire suspended between two hot air balloons, which must be ridden by an individual or teams. This record has not yet been claimed.
Anna Cochrane holds the record for the highest static trapeze act, using a trapeze at 10,365 feet that was attached below a hot air balloon. She suffered a dislocated rib a couple of minutes into her performance, but this did not stop her finishing her trapeze act and claiming the world record.
You would need to be a very experienced and brave trapeze artist to try this over Bath.
Ivan Trifonov flew a hot air balloon 206 metres underground in the Mamet Cave in Croatia. Although other flights into caves have been undertaking, this was widely reported to be record for the deepest underground balloon flight.
You could go to Wookey Hole Caves near Bath to fly a hot air balloon. At a depth of 295 meters, they are deeper than the Mamet Cave, but your balloon would need to be extra small as sections of the cave are very low and narrow.
In 2013, 25 skydivers leaped from a balloon in Dubai to claim the record for the most people who have ever sky dived from a hot air balloon.
World record attempts using hot air balloons tend to be undertaken by either the very brave or the very foolhardy! It is better to just enjoy an exciting hot air balloon ride over the city of Bath. You may not break any world records, but it is an experience that you will positively remember for the rest of your life. Book yours here
