While the current weather conditions may have grounded Canowindra balloonist Anton Kerr, his preparations for the 2022 world championships in Slovenia are full steam ahead.
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Mr Kerr said he and his team are doing all of the behind the scenes stuff including organising to have the balloon shipped to Slovenia and booking their tickets.
Preferred conditions for balloonists are calm predictable winds with no weather.
While he hasn't had a lot of in balloon practise over the last few months, Mr Kerr said every balloon flight is practice in some ways.
"In the competition a lot of it is about the technology and the complexity of the task you have got to do. It's actually quite hard to practise," he said.
"Flying a balloon is just keeping your hand in, so to speak, keeping current," Mr Kerr said.
While he may not be able to get up in the air for a little while, Mr Kerr said he has been preparing at his desk using technology to look at the previous competitions in Slovenia and the winds there.
"Balloon competitions are all about accuracy of flying using the available winds. You can't steer the balloon, but you can choose which layer of air you're in and that will give you different speed and direction so you can then navigate," he said.
"The competition is all about using the different winds to navigate to targets and drop your marker. Whoever gets their marker closest to the target gets a 1000 points and they scale the rest of the field based on how far away they are," Mr Kerr said.
"Practising is all about practising your accuracy of reading the winds and being able to put the balloon in the right place in the sky at the right time to get to your target," he said.
Mr Kerr has had plenty of practise at this, on two commercial flights recently he was able to land within 10 metres of his target landing site despite being on different days with different wind patterns.
Mr Kerr is confident of his abilities to fly in Slovenia as the conditions in Canowindra closely match those in the European country.
While there is some difference, Mr Kerr said the sites in Slovenia he will be flying with has a river running through the region which has a big influence on the lower winds, much like the Belubula River.
"Everyone I've spoken to has said conditions are similar to Canowindra which is great for me," he said.
Mr Kerr will team with fellow Canowindra resident Corey Knight and Cowra's Richard Thomas at the world titles.
Richard Thomas is replacing Matt Rice who has withdrawn as part of the ground crew due to an injury.
Mr Kerr said that Mr Rice was a little disappointed about having to pull out, but expects he'll be cheering them on from afar.
The team will head to Slovenia on September 11, five days before the start of the competition to get familiarised with the local terrain and make sure their equipment is working correctly with practise flights every day.
While it may be cheaper to take the family to Fiji for three months, Mr Kerr said the World Championships are a once in a lifetime opportunity that you just have to do.
There will be 100 crews competing at the World Championships, including five other Australian teams.
"Australia punches above its weight in world balloon competitions, we have some very good pilots, so we generally get six nominations to the event. Some of the other countries may only have two balloons competing," Mr Kerr said.
"We've got some magic places to fly balloons, Canowindra being right up there with some great weather for ballooning," he said.