Rudman's city: I'd rather big balloons kept clear of my patch

By BRIAN RUDMAN

It's a bit scary to think that Daryl McKee is, in the eyes of Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Martyn Gosling, "one of New Zealand's most, if not the most, experienced balloonists."

Let's hope the learner drivers aren't let loose over Auckland City.

Daryl's the chap who two weeks ago brought his balloon in for an unscheduled landing on a Ponsonby sports ground. Then on Wednesday he did a repeat swan dive into the Waitemata Harbour.

What trick has he got up his nylon windbag for next week? A touchdown on Sky Tower?

These recent incidents raise the question of how safe it is to fly balloons over urban areas. In saying that, I'm not so worried for the people inside the wicker basket as for those of us outside. The pilot and passengers willingly choose to take the risk. The rest of us don't.

The two incidents show how chancy balloon travel can be.

On June 5, the flight was supposed to go from inner harbour Okahu Bay west to Te Atatu. The wind had other ideas and left the balloon becalmed. Mr McKee said on that occasion that there was one thing absolutely guaranteed in a balloon: "Once you've taken off you are guaranteed to land, somewhere, sometime."

He proved that on Wednesday when a flight supposed to end up over Henderson ended with his eight semi-dunked passengers being rescued from the harbour by a police boat, and balloon and driver finally coming to a stop across the city centre in the Hobson Bay mudflats.

"At no stage were we in serious danger," said Mr McKee afterwards. The police took a rather less sanguine view of the drama. I was just glad he didn't clip my chimney.

If people want to put their lives in the hands of a balloonist and the fickle winds by floating around the sky in a wicker basket, good luck to them. But should they be allowed to endanger the rest of us?

My attitude may not be as extreme as the farm animals who reportedly go mental when one of these silent monsters drifts overhead, but I can appreciate where they're coming from.

Their apprehension is no doubt triggered by some inherited anti-bird of prey instinct. Mine comes from the thought of the damage a giant basket full of gas cylinders and passengers might do on accidental impact.

The balloonist will say they are always in control. Wednesday's carry-on didn't altogether give that impression.

There was a time when a balloon could fly over Auckland only if it was tethered. Now the regulations lump balloons in with other aircraft. They have to be at least 500ft over rural areas and 1000ft over towns and cities. The only exceptions are planes deemed less reliable, such as microlights, home-built aircraft and some former military machines. These are banned from populated areas and have to make do with scaring cows and horses.

Surely it's time to add balloons to that list.

Talking about scary things, have you heard the music on the television advertising for the Alfa Romeo 156 Monza. Why, you might wonder, did the post-Christian advertising agency Philistines responsible decide that Mozart's Requiem Mass - that's the one for the dead - was suitable for a car advert.

In particular, why did they pick the Dies Irae, in which the choir is storming on about "the day of wrath" when the Earth will dissolve in ashes and the terror will be great as God "threshes out everything thoroughly,"?

Jackie Robinson, at Alfa Romeo's importers, rather missed the point. "Are you not happy with the association of an Italian car and a German whatever it is?" she asked.

Resisting the temptation to go on about the bastardisation of great music to sell cars, I suggested there was a certain ridiculousness in using messages of death and destruction to do so.

"Well, what average Joe Blow public is going to know that? I didn't know that. Someone who is an aficionado of that type of music might not even know that. We haven't had any complaints at all. All it has done is assist our sales."

She said it was a beautiful piece of music and "if it happens to have that sort of translation behind it, who is going to know?"

Who indeed? But could I suggest that the God who threshes things thoroughly might be one to watch out for. Particularly when he hear's what Alfa has done to his song.