On the Sunday the 8th of May everybody assembled in Nottingham Road, accommodation was provided by Rawdons and a briefing took place at The Bierfassl, a pub just up the road. Several weeks before we had started to refer to the Fassl as mission control. All systems go so after a meal entitled the last supper it was off to bed and a restless night.

We arrived at Estcourt well before sunrise and assembled the kit in quick order. The weather was perfect, flat calm on the surface with no more than 25 knots of wind all the way up.

To reduce weight we flew with only one pole and no covers. The crown line was also removed. The balloon was made ready to launch at 0640 just after the news! Conditions were so perfect that that I decided to go 20 minutes early. It seemed pointless waiting for the station.

We had a moment when we thought the oxygen system had failed, that would obviously have been a no go item. David fixed the problem and at five minutes later than hoped and after a count down from mission control we lifted at 0625.

Back in Nottingham Road several locals had gathered at the pub for a mission control party. It was fancy dress with a flying theme. Breakfast was cooked on a shovel in the fire of a traction engine. The party had started at 0600 and I understand that everybody was getting fully into the spirit of things by launch time!

We quickly made contact with Joburg East on VHF and had our pre allocated squawk already dialled up on the transponder. Passing 8000