Pilot describes bizarre flight for Top Gear
Tuesday 1st December 2009, 12:25PM GMT.
A Shropshire pilot has been talking about his bizarre flight in a caravan airship, for the BBC Top Gear programme.
Chris Sanger-Davies was the expert behind the controls of the huge airship that took to the skies in the latest dig at caravanning by the Top Gear presenters.
The ship of the skies was created by Oswestry’s Lindstrand Balloons and took part in a race to a campsite in a head-to-head with a Lamborghini, driven by Richard Hammond.
While front man James May was filmed piloting the crazy craft, and did take the controls at times, it was Mr Sanger-Davies, who did the tricky manoeuvres and was in the caravan gondola throughout the flight.
The pilot, from Lindstrand Balloons, is one of only a handful in the world licensed to fly an airship.
“They say there are more astronauts than airship pilots,” he said.
“It is a bit like tapping your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. You have to be able to fly both an aircraft and a hot air balloon – simultaneously.”
Mr Sanger-Davies revealed that much of the sequence aired on Sunday’s Top Gear programme was scripted.
But Lindstrand Balloons said the landing, which saw the caravan gondola dragged across a field by the huge balloon was real.
“There was no emergency, it was a standard airship landing and no-one was hurt. Sometimes the wind just takes the balloon,” a spokesman for Lindstrand Balloons said.
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Personally I blame ‘rubber chops’ Clarkson for much of the impatient inconsiderate be-denimed midlife crisis driving we see on our roads today.
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Still publishing inaccurate reports, this part of Top Gear was NOT a race. Not doubt you’ll pull this comment too.
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