What?
The plan is to build a 69 size (69,000cuft 1955cum) hot air balloon, with lots of help from others but mainly by myself. My aim is to build this from start to finish using only “off the shelf” components which are the same as normal manafacturers would buy, effectivley cutting out the middle man so to speak.

Why?
Simply put, I cannot “afford” a brand new envelope, I am only 18 and while I could go and buy one right now, I would be pretty poor for a few years and I don’t really want to be making 20-30k investments at this stage.
The second reason is that I think its a great thing to do, and could be quite fun and also a great learning curve.

When?
As I said above, I am still 18, I finished highschool a few weeks ago and have nothing to do until Febuary-ish. After then I (hope, scores permitting) to go to uni, which will tie me up for about 4 years until I get a job and start working. It’s now or never.

How?
In a shed, armed with a Singer twin needle industrial sewing machine.