Ad Haarhuis from Breda, better known as Ad Ballon, has to stop as a professional balloonist. He himself would rather continue for years, but he has no choice: in a few weeks he will be 70 years old. And according to European law you are no longer allowed to take passengers in the basket commercially. “Big nonsense,” says Ad.
He is still very healthy and would prefer to continue sailing for years to come. “It would make more sense if it depended on your health whether you could continue to be a pilot, rather than them looking at your age.” Haarhuis would prefer to see older balloonists receive a periodic health check, just like the car driver’s license.
“I think my health will deteriorate if I have to stop.”
“If you are physically and mentally healthy, why shouldn’t you be able to balloon professionally at the age of seventy? And I have been very conscious of my health for fifty years. In fact, I think that your health will deteriorate if you have to stop something you enjoy doing.”
Haarhuis was the first Dutch pilot on a hot air balloon in the 1970s. He was trained by the American Simon Faithfull. In the past fifty years he has made almost five thousand balloon flights, mainly as a pilot for his Breda-based company Ad Ballon Ballonvaarten.
“When you’re that far away from everything earthly, you feel a little bit like heaven.”
He has no illusions that he will succeed in amending European legislation in the thirteen weeks before his birthday. So Haarhuis sold his company. Under the same name it has now moved from Breda to Galder, where Ad can still be found regularly. “I will especially miss the contact with people, with the other pilots, the crew, customers and the farmers where you land with your balloon.”
Haarhuis will no longer be allowed to transport paying passengers, but he will continue to balloon. “It’s so in my blood. I call it a kind of meditation. Because you’re very concentrated, the rest falls away. When you’re so far away from everything earthly, you feel a little heavenly. So let me float”, laughs the pilot from Breda.
