Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Hot Air Balloon Festival 2012 Officially Started Today!

The most awaited event in Clark Pampanga officially started today! At the break of dawn on the 9th of February, all shapes and sizes of colorful balloons filled the skies of Pampanga and nearby places. This marks the beginning of 17th Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta.

Many local and foreign tourists grace this event every year, last years PIHABF visitors reached 80,000. This year, they are expecting more crowd to join this event.

Aside from colorful Hot Air Balloons, trainer planes, helicopters, ultra-light aircraft and some flys-bys exhibitions also be seen and experience by the visitors. This year the US Air Force F-16 doing flight demonstrations is the major attraction.

Captain Meynard Halili will lead the thrilling aerobatics show together will the ace pilots from other foreign countries.

According to Captain Joy Roa, the head of Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta, the success of the previous event, are challenged to come up with and more surprises on the hot air balloon venture and aviation spectacles lead by aviation enthusiasts from USA, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, The Netherlands, Austria, Japan, England and South Korea.

Special-shaped hot air balloons like car-shaped baloon from Germany, a daisy flower, ice cream cone, and a birthday cake from the United States and other regularly shaped huge flying bubbles are the main attraction in the event. Activities like skydiving from the experts from Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippine National Police make mass formation in the sky after jumping from an altitude of not less than 5,000 feet.

Kids will also enjoy the Children’s Activity Center sponsored by Crayola and Hot Dog on Sticks which taught on kite-making, flight simulators and aviation workshops. They can also watch Remote Control car and aircraft competition on specially designated spots.

Source: http://www.sunstar.com.ph