Inside the Basket - Alain Bard, Balloon Pilot

September 10, 2024

There will be 106 Special Shapes balloons flying in the 52^nd event, and 16 making their Balloon Fiesta debut this year! In this month’s Inside the Basket, get to know pilot Alain Bard from Canada, who will be flying Météo, his special shape “weather balloon”. Join us in welcoming him along with the other international pilots to Albuquerque this year.

Get to Know Alain:

Alain has been an avid flying enthusiast his entire life. As a young boy, he built and flew dozens of his model aircraft creations. As a certified skydiver, Alain has jumped almost 1,000 times from various types of aircraft, helicopters and hot air balloons, and is a certified skydiving instructor and parachute rigger. In 2012, he achieved the Canadian record for the largest formation in freefall (102 parachutists). Alain is a paraglider pilot, and is a Transport Canada certified pilot in powered paragliders and hot air balloons. He is also a hot air balloon flight instructor and a Transport Canada certified Aircraft Maintenance Engineer (AME) for balloons.

Since 2009, Alain's main passion has been piloting Hot Air Balloons. He is one of the rare people in the world to have constructed his own hot air balloons and baskets from scratch. He manufactures these balloons under the Bard Balloons moniker. Seven of these balloons are "Special Shape" hot air balloons in the shape of an Alien Rocket Ship, a Christmas Deer, a Polar Bear, a Tiger, a Robot, a Sun/Cloud and a Mushroom. Alain also designs modern hot balloons in 3D CAD for other balloon builders with 18 of these designs completed to date.

Alain has flown balloons in some far-away places in the world, a total of 13 countries: Czech Republic, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Qatar, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, United Kingdom as well as locally at many of the hot air balloon festival in Canada and the USA. Alain is the Ontario sales representative for Kubicek Balloons, the largest balloon manufacturers in the world. Since 2012, Alain has been the President of the National Capital Balloon Club where, along with other club members, he has helped create several other balloons from scratch. As President, he helps promote the sport in the National Capital region and also acts as liaison to Transport Canada.

1. How and when did you become involved in Balloon Fiesta?

After designing and building my first special shape hot air balloon - Alien Rocket - I was invited to attend with this balloon in 2016 and again in 2017. I am returning this year, for the first time since 2017 - with Météo.

2. What is the story behind Météo?

MÉTÉO is the latest Special Shape Hot Air Balloon to come out of the Bard Balloons workshop and was conceived during the depths of the 2020 covid shutdown where I had lots of time to design the perfect version of this concept. It combines elements such as clouds, a sun, a rainbow, and a star (there is even a hidden lightning bolt to discover). It took 5 full design iterations to get this one just right before I started building it – and it took a full year to cut and sew together, and another year of flight testing, for a total of almost 3 years from start to finish.

“Météo” is the French word for “weather”, the perfect name for this balloon.

While seemingly simple from the outside, this special shape balloon is quite complex, with internal structure walls and internal cone, over 150 airflow holes and 16 appendages (including the largest appendages I have ever built – the 2 side bubbles of the cloud – each with a diameter of 9.5 m / 31 ft) – all these details come together to give this balloon a distinctive shape.

It is made with my very special, custom-designed lightweight fabric, as well as fluorescent fabric for the yellow sun portion, and in a few colors of the rainbow.

The base is a sphere and has an internal volume of 2,260 m3 / 80,000 cubic feet and it has a total volume of 2,660 m3 / 94,000 ft3. It is almost as wide (21m / 69 ft) as it is tall (22m / 71 ft), and because it uses lightweight fabric, the balloon envelope only weighs 100 kg! (220 lbs).

3. What are you most looking forward to at Balloon Fiesta this year?

Seeing all my ballooning friends attending from all around the world and talking shop - mostly about hot air balloon design.

A few innovations that I have been using in the amateur-built balloon scene have been picked up by some of the major balloon manufacturers over the last few years such as lightweight fabrics and hybrid balloon profiles - it's an exciting time with new technologies.

4. What do you do when you’re not flying hot air balloons?

My life pretty much revolves around balloons, but when I'm not flying, I am usually designing or building new balloons or inspecting and repairing balloons. I also like to paraglide from time to time.

5. What is a favorite ballooning memory?

Adventure ballooning in the Philippines with Jonathan Trappe. We flew for a couple of hours across unknown terrain for a first ever balloon flight in this particular area - first over one side of the ocean, then over fish farms, then crops, then forest, then up and down crevasses of a volcano face, and had to find a landing spot before running out of land - as the wind at the end of the flight was pushing us out to the ocean. Recovery was by Water Buffalo and a wooden cart.