INTERVIEW
JUST OUT
OF THIS
WORLD
Peter White meets Chris Sandell
who stunned TV with hot air balloon stunts
As the saying goes, there’s a fine line
between bravery and madness. Chris
Sandell once decided on a career move
that fell virtually right on that fine
line.
As financial uncertainty grew and
the recession of the early 1990s began
to take its toll, the future of Chris’s
seemingly stable chartered surveyors
business was suddenly very much up in
the air. So he decided to follow suit!
From the relative calm of his 9.0 to
5.0 job he opted for an amazing change
of direction – and went upwardly
mobile as a hot air balloon pilot.
During his dozen or so years
travelling in a basket hanging under
a number of massive flying machines,
Chris and his regular flying partner
Mike Howard took on much more
than just giving paying passengers a
panoramic view of the picturesque
south of England and the Isle of
Wight.
They embarked on a series of high
altitude stunts that really did border
on madness, even though they earned
them a number of TV appearances
and a couple of places in the Guinness
Book of Records.
Chris has subsequently left the ‘high
life’, and he and wife Lyn have their
36
www.visitislandlife.com
feet firmly back on the ground running
their property development business
from their home near Ryde. But he
found time to give Island Life an
insight into a truly amazing chapter of
his life that was far more than just a
load of hot air.
The stunts that came towards the
end of his balloon flying career were
truly incredible. He and Mike were
contacted by the BBC to do something
‘quite spectacular’ for the start and
finish of the TV series ‘Record
Breakers.’
So with show host Cheryl Baker
on board, they flew their balloon to
an altitude of 20,300ft before Mike
performed a trapeze act, swinging
from a rope attached to the top of
the balloon – the highest ever trapeze
act by more than 4,000ft, and in a
temperature of minus 18 degrees!
But it could so easily have cost Mike
his life. Chris explained: “He learned
his trapeze act on a piece of wood
swinging from a tree in his garden.
After a bit of practice and a couple
of falls he said he was ready. On the
day we did it he should have worn a
safety line, but disconnected it before
he got out of the balloon. And because
of the altitude he also had a canular