[spocklivelong]

While balloons are great for experiments, I would personally advise against hot air ballooning for recreation. I (and a few other friends) all had bad experiences riding on one. We were basically transported to the emergency after "hard landing" which is actually very common in ballooning (I read a lot about it after the fact). Some serious red flags about ballooning:

- There is no set landing zone, which means they can land anywhere and it can get dangerous if you couldn't find a suitable spot (we landed in someone's backyard)

- Wind can take you anywhere, also it changes pretty fast when in an altitude and you can't control the direction, only the altitude of the balloon.

- There is no emergency equipment required on the balloon and the only thing you have is a harness to hold on to

- You need a license but the bar is pretty low

- FAA doesn't investigate the accidents, but NTSB does

[jamesrcole]

Do all these apply the world-over, or just in the US?

[spocklivelong]

I think this is pretty much anywhere in the world.