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Young World
High, high up in the sky!
JAIDEEP SHENOY
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Flying is sure fun but this time it wasn’t on an aeroplane!
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Mangalore
Right from the time of the Wright Brothers, man has constantly endeavoured to come up with ways and means to fly higher and faster and this has resulted in the invention of the aircraft, helicopter and other devices, which aids safe flight. Two such flying devises – the parasail and the hot air balloon caught the fancy of Mangaloreans at the Nehru Maidan here recently.
Organised by the district administration as part of the ongoing Karavali Utsav, the hot air balloon show was touted as the star attraction of the event.
The young and the old alike queued up for tickets in advance and those who managed to lay their hands on the ticket were thrilled.
Safe and fun
But fickle weather conditions during day time (read strong upper winds) meant that the organisers could not hold all the scheduled flights of the hot air balloon.
While this did leave a few people disgruntled, those who managed to go on the ride had mixed reactions. The reason – the flights did not last long enough for their liking and the organisers for safety reasons did not take the hot air balloon above 300 metres.
A few who came had to return disappointed for the hot air balloon did not take off on time. But for the likes of Disha, Deena, and Anolia, students of a private school here, the event was something which they would like to remember. “We wanted to see how the city appeared from high up there,” they chorused.
But others like Neha Benita, a student, who waited for her turn to fly the hot air balloon, tried their hand at para sailing.
She liked the experience of flying like a bird.
Was she scared? “No,” she said and many like her who tried their hand at parasailing. A move by the administration to provide free rides to select government school students was dropped for safety reasons.
Yet, each time the balloon flew; it drew loud ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ from those on the ground.
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