1. Yut Wanichanond has been in ballooning since 1990. He is the pioneer and the first hot air balloon and hot air airship pilot in Thailand. He also flies hovercraft  which becomes a new venture of him. He has role in every successful balloon events in Thailand including Thailand First International Balloon Festival 2007 at Khao Yai.

2. Barry Hammond Barry now works closer to his home in England and works for a local software development company who provide software to produce documents and translations for a major car manufacturer. He enjoys this extra time that this gives him with his wife and Two boys Phillip aged 3 and Alex who was born in 2007. Phillip enjoys the balloons and knows all of the balloons names and pilots that fly near his home but at the moment has never had a chance to fly.

3. Geoffrey Lescott has been ballooning since the late 1970's and qualified as a pilot finally in 2000. He blames his good friend Yutakit Wanichanond for this as this is his 8th ballooning visit to Thailand, which he regards almost as a second home. His balloon is named "Heart of Gold”, happy to fly abroad, she has graced the skies of France, Italy, Croatia, Dubai and Sri Lanka. Geoff lives in Oxford, UK and works in the Computing Services division for Oxford University as the University's Data Network Controller. A keen photographer he has his own web site including two Journals recording his previous ballooning adventures in Thailand. Visit:-http://users.ox.ac.uk/-geoff

4. Mark Stephen lives Warwick England where there is a busy Thai community. He has an interest in all the arts, architecture, painting, music, art metalwork design and manufacture [He has completed many gold and silver commissions] churches, boats, photography, Gardens, and landscape design.
He has sailed the Atlantic in tall ships, travelled overland in China, jumped out of a perfectly good aeroplane, flown hot air balloons for over 20 years in many parts of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East as high as 21.000 feet, and across the English channel three times,    

5. Colin Butter When not  ballooning I lead a team of scientists working on producing better vaccines against Avian Influenza.   I recently organised a symposium in Beijing between British and Chinese scientists and frequently travel to meet international colleagues and coordinate collaborative work.

Home is a tiny village in Southern England:  Marsh Benham, the home of British ballooning.  Over the years I’ve been fortunate to fly in many countries and have made several over-water flights between England and France and one from  Ireland to Wales.   I also fly gas balloons, filled with hydrogen or helium, and represent the UK in the prestigious Gordon Bennett Race.  This is the oldest aviation race in the world and the rule is simple: the team who fly furthest win.  Flights can take over three days and cover thousands of kilometres.

We (Gill, Emilie and I) are very much looking forwards to our first flights in Thailand.

6. Timothy Parker A hot air balloon pilot for some 15 years, Tim Parker hails from the sailing town of Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex, UK. He is married to Rowena and is father to two teenage children. Tim enjoys adventurous challenges and has scaled Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa; white water rafted in Peru, slid down a glacier in Antarctica and ridden canyons in Arizona on horseback. One of his ambitions is to witness an erupting volcano.

7. Barry Bower    worked in Hong Kong for 23 years as a Senior Check Captain on the Boeing 747-400 before retiring in 1999. He has over 18,000 flying hours in various aircraft ranging from balloons, gliders, and light aircraft to jet aircraft. He also holds an aircraft maintenance engineer’s license and has restored several classic light aircraft and has built and flown his own light aircraft.
Since 2004 he and his wife have lived in Italy in an old farmhouse which they had rebuilt and restored.

8. John Wrigglesworth “Having worked in sales for twenty years he recently decided to start his own business, working as a distributor to the electronic manufacturing market and as he already had a balloon with a logo decided to name his business Brody Ltd. When not ballooning John took up Paragriding as a means of getting into sky on windy days. He is now a club pilot and have my own paraglider and love to spend my time soaring along the Somerset and Dorset ridges and coastline”

9. Nicholas Amor I have been involved in ballooning for about 25 years, firstly as a ground crew driver and then, since 1998 as a pilot. During my years in the sport, I have flown and crewed all over the world - America, Austrailia, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Morocco,Norway and Portugal.
     I was lucky enough to visit Morocco 4 times, helping on the ground with the Virgin Global series of flights.
     I have been flying commercially since 2002, originally setting up a ride business with a friend but since 2006 I have been flying for a large company based in Bristol in the UK

10. Philip Claridge    Life takes many differing routes, many unplanned and not all ideal, but the world of ballooning certainly sets one on a path of unbelievable adventure that is matchless in any other walk of life.

Linzi and I worked in the City of London for many years. Linzi as an Insurance Underwriting Manager with Sun Alliance, and myself as a current affairs journalist with the Times and Sunday Times, and whilst life was hectic and full of the London buzz, we both craved the quieter existence of life in the countryside.

After many years of dreaming and planning, we finally took the plunge and ‘retired’ to the peaceful rolling Downs of West Sussex.

11. Roman Mohr  UK Private Balloon Pilot.   Aged 64 retired IT Support company director. Now commercial property manager  Started flying 1988.  Attended various Balloon Events around the world  - Chile China Korea Thailand Antigua Australia Arctic etc…and of course Europe.  In the UK fly passengers for a Child Cancer Charity and fly for pleasure

12. Gabriela Sargeant was born in 1966 in Switzerland. She lives and works in Switzerland and is personal assistant to one of the biggest concert promoters in Europe. A qualified lighting technician with more than 16 years experience, she also provides a consultancy service to private people designing their wishes and dreams for their new houses, covering all aspects of electrical installations such as home cinema, intelligent house systems and networks. Gabriela is also a very enthusiastic scuba diver but when she met her husband Richard who is passionate about ballooning, they agreed a deal that Gabi would obtain her balloon pilots licence and Richard his scuba diver licence. They now travel the world together enjoying both their shared passions.

14. Daan van Loesbroek  My first experience with ballooning was back in 1984. I was only 11 years old then. After passing his practical ballooning exams my father wanted to share the beautiful experience of ballooning with his family. So, the four of us (my father, my mother, my brother and me) went up with my father’s first balloon, a hot air balloon for approximately 4 passengers sponsored by Fuji Film. I especially remember the take-off very vividly. It felt like the earth was pulled down very fast below me, a very strange but great feeling.

15. David Baker     has been flying Hot Air Balloons for over 20 years and has more than 750 hours as pilot in command and has flown in over 30 different countries around the World including North America, South Africa, Russia, Australia, Japan, and many other European and Asian countries. This is his third visit to Thailand, one of his favourite countries. Ballooning has given him the opportunity to meet so many wonderful people across the World and develop such good and lasting friendships. His Ballooning activities have enabled him to raise money for several charities over the years, and this has been very satisfying.

16. David Seager-Thomas