What time is my sunrise balloon flight?
Waking up before sunrise is not most people’s idea of fun, so why do we make hot air balloon flights so early? Well, other than getting to watch beautiful sunrises, the timing your hot air ballooning adventure flight has a lot to do with the weather.
In order to capture the best and safest conditions to fly hot air balloons in, we need to be up before the sun because the cool, calm weather conditions that are usually present at dawn are most ideal for a balloon flight. In short, sunrise is the safest and most suitable time for a hot air balloon flight.
Meeting Time Guide
So what time will you need to meet for your flight? To ensure that we have enough time to travel to the morning’s chosen launch site and prepare the balloon for flight, our flights generally meet 60 – 120 minutes before the time of sunrise. Here’s a handy guide to give you a better idea of meeting times throughout the year:
As the sunrise times varies throughout the year, so does the approximate meeting time but it is likely to fall between these times:
- January 3:45am – 5:00am
- February 4:15am – 5:15am
- March 4:45am – 5:45am
- April 5:00am – 6:00 AEDST / 4:00am – 5:00am AEDT
- May 4:30am – 5:45am
- June 4:45am – 6:00am
- July 4:45am- 6:00am
- August – 4:15am -5:45am
- September – 3:45 am – 4:45am
- October – 3:45am – 4:45am AEDT / 4:00 – 5:00 AEDST
- November – 3:45am – 5:00am
- December – 3:45am – 4:45am
On rare occasions your exact meeting time may fall outside of these times if deemed necessary by the pilots. You will be notified the day before your flight your exact meeting time.
Are there afternoon Flights?
Most locations in Australia are not conducive to afternoon balloon flights. Weather conditions are often much windier, and atmospheric instability is greater in the afternoons. An exception to that weather rule is our Burketown location in Gulf Country, QLD. From our Burketown location we are able to offer afternoon flights from June to September each year.
