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of the ground, so that they can rise up with the balloon in due course: these youths have to light the fuses at just the right moment when the balloon takes off (see plate 6).
Once the balloon is fully erect, the oil-soaked ball is set alight and fixed to the centre of the wire struts at the rim. The balloon is pulled down to the ground and held down by as many of the village youths as possible, to maximise the heating effect of the very ardent fire produced by the oil-soaked ball (see plate 7).
Lighting of the old peanut oil ball was not always easy, and often took some time; the modern diesel soaked balls are much easier to light. In either case, once lit, the balloon soon begins to glow like a huge lantern, and the whole balloon quickly starts to strain upwards. The young men of the village try to restrain the balloon until the whole surface of the oil-ball was well alight, to ensure that the balloon flies upwards quickly and directly, with no dangerous lurches to the side where village buildings and crops stand ready to be set on fire. Usually, the balloon's lift is, however, so great that the young men are unable to restrain it for more than a few seconds. This is the most dangerous time, as the risks of the balloon catching fire at this stage are high: about half, in fact, fail and collapse in flame in this stage. If they don't burn out, the lift is great enough to carry the balloon up to a height of several thousand feet: balloons will cross the mountains of the New Territories with little problem. Ideally, the night for flying a balloon should be still and windless, so that the balloon goes straight up and hangs like a great lantern over the village, only drifting off slowly (see plate 8). A well-made balloon with a peanut oil-ball would burn, the villagers state, throughout the night and into the following day. Certainly, within the last 3 years, the author has seen balloons still hanging two or three hundred feet above the ground well into the morning after the Mid Autumn Festival. Diesel fired balloons burn out quicker, and tend to drift back to earth after an hour or so.
The villagers are and were aware of the fire-risks inherent in these balloons. The danger was when the balloon came back to earth still burning rather than staying in mid-air until the oil burnt out and the balloon drifted, dead, slowly back to earth. If the balloon was not restrained for the first few seconds after it was lit, or if the paper dome
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