Challenge: Knocking On Heaven's Door - S/Ldr Roly Parsons

[Dave Homewood]

I have just discovered a brilliant 1976 TVNZ documentary called Challenge: Knocking On Heaven's Door. It follows Kiwi balloon pioneer Squadron Leader Roly Parsons and his friends as he attempted the first ever crossing above Mount Cook in his hot air balloon, "Westwind". It is terrific, a great story from the days when men were men, with wonderful cinematography, and a great soundtrack and narration. Such great viewing.

www.nzonscreen.com/title/challenge-knocking-on-heavens-door-1976

[oj]

... and he gave us a great talk about it at the Hamilton RAeS meeting sometime thereafter.

[Peter Lewis]

His Cameron Model O-77 Hot Air Balloon ZK-FBD (first balloon to cross Cook Strait) went to MoTAT.

I enquired recently as to its whereabouts there - a great silence ensued.

[Dave Homewood]

[tbf2504]

Ah the dinning in sequence brings back memories, I even spotted myself in one of the frames! Great names such as Alan Gill, Maurice Ford, Neil Munro (all engineers) and Base Commander Squadron Leader "Biggles" Bygate.

[Dave Homewood]

Here is an article on some of Roly Parsons' earlier record breaking flights, from The Press, 29 July 1974:

Successful ballooning

Three ballooning records, including a New Zealand “first,” are being claimed by Royal New Zealand Air Force officers based at Wigram after a flight on Saturday afternoon. Flight Lieutenant R. R. Parsons set a New Zealand distance record by covering 32 miles from Hororata to Punawai, about four miles from Mayfield, breaking his old record of 30 miles set on June 1.

He set a new endurance record of two hours 50 minutes, adding 20 minutes to his old record, set on June 1 also.

The team is claiming a “first” in New Zealand for a free-fall sky dive from a hot-air balloon by Flight Lieutenant T. Gardiner, who made his jump at 5500 ft and opened his parachute at 2500 ft.

In 1889, a Professor Baldwin made successful balloon flights in Dunedin and Christchurch and was the first to make successful parachute descents in New Zealand from balloons; but in “free-falling” the object is to obtain a minimum height before opening the parachute.

The first parachute descent from a hot-air balloon was made by a Frenchman in England in 1802, according to “Aerostat,” the journal of the British Balloon and Airship Club.

Flight Lieutenant Gardiner said that jumping from the balloon basket felt very strange because there was no slipstream as there was with an aircraft. He had sat on the side of the basket and pushed himself off, doing a series of rolls before straightening out.

With the loss of one man’s weight, the balloon had increased height at the rate of about 1000 ft a minute until it was corrected, Flight Lieutenant Parsons said. Lift-off was from the Hororata racecourse at 12.45 p.m. There was a north to north-east wind of only 10 to 12 knots blowing, but it was very cold, freezing point being reached at 3000 ft.

The co-pilot with Flight Lieutenant Parsons on Saturday was Flying Officer N. Munro. The land-rescue man was Flight Lieutenant D. Forrest.

Flight Lieutenant Parsons now hopes to gain a world record for dropping a hang glider. To do this, he will have to reach an altitude of 15,000 to 16,000 ft. He also hopes to qualify for the Two-mile High Club, an international club formed for balloonists who ascend to 10,600 ft.