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Cloudhopper.org
This site was established in 2003.  The site is based in part on the Cloudhopper content originally developed for www.clusterballoon.org by John Ninomiya.  This separate site was deemed necessary to serve the needs of the Cloudhopper pilots, many of whom wanted to be able to point friends and neighbors to somewhere on the Web to learn about 'hoppers, without having everyone assume that they also did the thing with all the helium balloons.  The www.cloudhopper.org domain name is owned by Roland Escher, who graciously donated it to this project.

The following individuals have contributed to the development of this site:
John Ninomiya: Content
Roland Escher: Domain name, content
Photo Contributors: Ernie Hartt, John Ninomiya
 

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Contact Us

Send us e-mail at
We especially welcome inquiries from hot-air balloonists who are interested in Cloudhoppers. 
For non-balloonists Interested learning to fly Cloudhoppers: The vast majority of Cloudhopper pilots learn to fly in conventional hot-air balloons first.  So, a reasonable first step toward Cloudhoppers is learning to fly a conventional hot-air balloon, or to just going for a ride in one, if you haven't done it before.  If it scares you witless or bores you silly, then you can safely conclude you wouldn't like Cloudhoppers either.  Based on that, if you decide you're really interested, we may be able to find someone who flies cloudhoppers who could teach you to fly balloons -- but expect to do at least five or six flights in a basket before you do any Cloudhoppering. 

Although an "ultralight" Cloudhopper (see FAQ) could legally be flown by someone without a pilot's license, we're not aware of anywhere that you can actually do that -- no one who owns a Cloudhopper wants a big hole burnt in the side of it, or wants to be sued by your next of kin when you go crispy critters on some power lines.  Like anything really worthwhile in life, there's some dues-paying involved in becoming a Cloudhopper pilot.
Your comments on the website are welcome.
 

 

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