I flew hot air balloons for 12 years and never had a scary landing, but some
were quite interesting! I've landed in open fields, peoples back yards,
golf courses, tops of trees, even on a boat once, but I never felt there was
any real danger of serious injury.

Landing a balloon, like landing a fixed wing aircraft is all about energy
management. You want to dissipate that energy slowly, and a balloon has a
LOT more energy to dissipate than a light aircraft because it has more
weight. No way you say? Let me explain.

The balloon I flew had a gross weight of 1660 pounds. Takeoff weight with
me and 3 passengers was usually at least 1550 pounds, similar to a light
aircraft. So we fly for and hour or so and burn off 125-150 pounds of fuel.
Still sounds about like a light aircraft huh? What about that bag of hot
air over your head? My balloon's volume was 90,000 cubic feet, that almost
4 TONS of air thats moving with you. So when it comes time to land and
bring this thing to a stop you aren't trying to stop a 1500 pound aircraft,
you're trying to stop over 9000 pounds!!

Time to land, so we look for a decent field (actually we've been looking
during the entire flight). Lets say its an afternoon flight and the wind
is still 5 knots when it's time to land. We were hoping the wind would
disipate as sunset approached, but these things happen. Ideally we try to
find a landing spot sheltered by trees, but lets say we can't. We find an
open field and decend slowly, after all 5 knots is only a brisk walking
pace. When the basket touches down it stops, BUT the envelope (the balloon
part) continues to move. Just before the basket touches down we pull the
line attached to the parachute shaped valve in the top of the envelope to
allow the air to start to escape, reducing lift (kinda like dumping the
flaps on a short field landing). The basket tips and drags as we dissipate
energy, all the while the envelope continues to deflate. Maybe we drag
through some grass, bushes, or what have you but we are all safe and sound
in the basket. Rarely would you drag over 50 feet.

Most of the time though the wind has died down during the late afternoon
flight and the conditions at ground level are near calm. A perfect stand up
landing (ballooning equivilant of a greaser) or one or two little hops of
the basket before stopping.

Try it sometime, you might like it.

Rick
Commercial Pilot, ASMEL, Instrument