James May recently successfully flew a Freedom Microlite Caravan attached as a Gondola to a Lindstrand Air-Ship Balloon from London to Cambridge, for the hugely popular BBC Top Gear Programme, competing with Richard Hammond in a Lamborghini Sports Car. The show will be aired on Sunday 29th November to a global audience of some 350,000,000 viewers and additionally an unknown number of You Tube and other on-line viewers.
The project began several months ago when BBC Top Gear approached both Freedom Caravans of Stafford and Lindstrand Balloons of Oswestry suggesting the project. Freedom together with its Polish Factory "Niewiadow SA" constructed a caravan to meet the exacting criteria of both Lindstrand and the Civil Aviation Authority. The task was not so daunting as Niewiadow SA is a Precision Engineering Company based near to Lodz in Poland and has links with Aeronautical Manufacture for the last 60 years. The caravan, which carried the CAA registration GTOP_G was required to house 2 burner units for the hot air envelope, Associated Gas Cylinders, seat a pilot and co-pilot, carry the Equipment required to heat the Envelope, whilst maintaining all the facilities of a modern caravan, it had to remain tow able and comply to construction and use road regulations, have cooking facilities and sleep 2 persons. During flight the crew had to have both forward, side, above and below visibility. Weight was a major issue and Freedom together with its partners achieved an all up weight of below 500kg.
The Freedom Team were present at "Top Gears" Studios for the final show filming which was described as exhilarating and one of the best challenges TG had ever done!
Lindstrand Balloons, Who constructed the Virgin Global Hot Air balloon and various other Virgin Transatlantic Balloons, constructed an inner space-frame for the Caravan "Gondola" to give the crew additional safety and strength in the event of a collision or "Crash Landing". The Gondola was attached to a Lindstrand balloon and hot air was fed to the envelope via a burner in the Freedom Gondola, An Engine was mounted on the Tow frame to power the airship, whilst additional chassis and undercarriage was installed to aid lift off and landing, this was put to the test when on an earlier practise flight a gust of wind caught the envelope and lifted it some ½ mile depositing the airship on a hedge, global media coverage that week quoted " Disaster " It even made front page AOL, but in fact the Little Freedom only suffered a cracked window! And all crew de-planed unscratched, to enjoy a cup of tea!
The actual successful flight took place later in October when a lull in the months inclement weather allowed the airship to lift off, The Balloon was being challenged by "Top Gears" Richard Hammond driving a Lamborghini between London and Cambridge
| 
About Us
