I conceived of a comprehensive ballooning web site early in 1994 when I first got hooked on the World Wide Web. Many of us in the ballooning community take for granted all of the ballooning information we have at our disposal, but, in reality, the general public, and much of the Internet community, do not have easy access to the bulk of ballooning information. I wanted to bring comprehensive ballooning information to the Web.
But why? Try to find Ballooning - The Complete Guide to Riding the Winds by Dick Wirth, in the local bookstore or library and you won't find it. Look for Balloon Life in the local newsstand and you won't find it there. Look for a list of balloon clubs in your area in the phone book and you won't find it. Call you state or regional tourism agency or board and ask about balloon rallies in your area and they won't be able to tell you! There has got to be something we can do about that!
Oddly enough, there are some balloonists who like their relative obscurity. But, if ballooning is really to survive as a sport, we must always be ambassadors of good will and information to all who may be interested, and to the general public. We must get the word out about the sport. If the general public understands and is more informed about ballooning, we'll have a general public that will welcome us when we trespass by landing on their property, and who won't call 911 when they see a balloon about to land. If we spread the word, we may get more crew, more pilots, more competition, and, perhaps, more understanding landowners.
Another area of importance to me is pilot/crew education and information exchange. We all know that continuing training and education are the cornerstones of successful ballooning. Recently, I was at the Carolina Balloon Association safety seminar and was asked on several occasions about Internet and how to get to information, especially weather. After that seminar, I built into my personal ballooning web page a new, easy-to-use weather information web page format. If I wanted all of the latest data for Raleigh, NC, I just selected the Raleigh weather page. I created a format that is easily transferable to new pages for other areas. I like the result, but what to do with it.
Of course, creating personal web pages that are blocked by a corporate 'firewall' is useless to the ballooning community at large. I needed to get this stuff out on the net. I contacted several web providers, and then, on 21 March 1995, I stumbled upon SunSITE at UNC. I sent them a note about the concept, and the loved it. Thus was born Ballooning Online! - the first truly comprehensive ballooning web site!
Now, I can't possibly create the whole thing in just a few short months. Ballooning Online! is a continually growing site. New information is added every day! To make the site as I envision it will need the support of the ballooning community as a whole. I've set the site up to support user input via a set of mailboxes. Submissions will be added to the site as they come in. In the long run, I hope to have a web site that the ballooning community can be proud of, and can use to further their education and understanding of the sport.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this site, and I hope to hear from you soon with contributions! Blue skies and soft landings!
Eric E. Goodson.
Ballooning Online!