Flying with our competition

While we enjoy making fun of our competition - we couldn't say any of this if it wasn't 100% TRUE!

IS THIS ANY WAY TO TAKE A BALLOON TOUR?

Jammed together like sardines in a can, in a tiny "sport" basket with low sides and no personal space...

Here's the sport basket EVERY Fly By Night Tour in Tucson uses to carry paying passengers:

Completely open with 4 passengers PLUS pilot and exposed steel fuel tanks in a low sided

basket designed for a pilot and one passenger.

Here's the gondola that Balloon America uses on our first class tours with more than double the on-board space:

A spacious, high sided, fully padded T- partioned basket designed to carry passengers in separate compartments

PLUS the pilot and fuel tanks in his own compartment shown at the bottom of the picture. Safety and comfort come FIRST with us.

This is what you'll hear, smell and see from your balloon when flying with ALL of our amateur, part time competitors:

1) You'll be slammed together toe to toe like sardines in a tiny, stripped down basket that was designed for sport ballooning,

with extremely low sides promoting an insecure feeling and absolutely zero personal space on board.

2) You'll be forced to stand up the entire time, unable to move around the basket. Just like on a subway, except there are NO seats!

3) You'll fly in a straight line at an average altitude of 200 feet above ground the entire flight.

4) You'll enjoy the constant din of rush hour freeway traffic, the smell of a sewage treatment plant

and cattle feed lots, staring in utter disbelief at the roofs of industrial parks, mass housing projects,

barren desert, trailer parks and gigantic plowed cotton fields. Welcome to Marana and Avra valley...

Local Tucsonan's have long referred to the Marana and Avra valley area as "Dogpatch".

Don't be fooled by blatant lies from Fly By Night Tours that can't be fulfilled!

One new competitor boldly proclaims on their web site "DAILY FLIGHTS BY SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK" and at the same time says that flights "FOLLOW A UNIQUE BALLOON FLIGHT PATH OVER THE SONORAN DESERT, TUCSON MOUNTAINS, SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK WEST, AND THE AGRICULTURAL EXPANSE OF AVRA VALLEY". Another blatantly misrepresents a "... RIDE OVER THE BEAUTIFUL TUCSON MOUNTAINS AND SAGUARO NATIONAL PARK". Yet another boasts of picking out great flying areas to "... GIVE THE BEST POSSIBLE FLIGHT OVER THE TUCSON MOUNTAINS..."

THERE'S ONLY ONE PROBLEM WITH ALL OF THIS:

Flying over Saguaro National Park at low altitude is illegal and in violation of Federal Aviation Regulations. The National Park Service requires that pilots maintain a minimum vertical and horizontal distance of 2000 feet (almost half a mile) from the nearest ground mass to minimize wildlife disturbance. Not a problem anyway - since the closest you'll ever get to the park's perimeter is 4 miles away from your balloon's flight path... how do we know? We've MEASURED it!

Then there's flying over the Tucson "Mountains". Your flight path will take you over nothing more than a lumpy 300 foot tall dirt clod located at the end of the valley next to the cement plant. The plant's towering smoke stacks are an iconic local landmark for folks in these parts. You can see the Tucson "mountains" you'll be flying over below - right next to the tract housing.

Here's some typical views you'll have while flying in the waste land of Marana, Avra Valley and Dogpatch...

Here's a long view of the area you'll be flying. You'll be flying due northwest the entire flight,

paralleling Interstate 10 and Tucson's hardcore agricultural and industrial area.

Want to see Saguaro National Park? You'll need to get in your car and drive there since the nearest you'll get to the park's entrance is 8 miles

Urban sprawl and tract housing - LOTS and LOTS of tract housing - as you approach the 300 foot tall Tucson "mountains".

WOW! ...at long last you'll fly over the Tucson "Mountains!"

You'll be landing in 5 minutes on the other side in a dirt field.

If you're into industrial parks here's a great view of the cement plant as you fly over

and prepare to land. Located at the end of the Tucson "mountains".

Fond memories of the gravel pit. About half way through your flight. Hey, it was more scenic than the cement plant!

Your flight is almost over and it's time to land.... Wake up and smell the manure and plowed fields here in downtown Dogpatch.