Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta

Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta
Balloons being inflated during the 20th Fiesta
Genre	hot air balloon festival
Dates	Every 2nd week of February
Location(s)	Clark Freeport Zone, Angeles City, Pampanga, Philippines
Years active	1994 - Present
Founded	1994
Attendance	approx. 100,000
Website
http://www.philballoonfest.net/

The Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta is an annual event that occurs between January and February in Clark Freeport Zone, Angeles City, Pampanga. It features multicolored hot air balloons with more than a hundred balloon pilots from around the world. This four-day hot air balloon event is the biggest and longest-running aviation sports event in the Philippines.

The festival also features a number of events in skydiving, flag jumps, micro light and rocketry demonstrations, small plane fly-bys and fly-ins, remote-control airplane and helicopter flying exhibitions, freestyle aerobatics, precision maneuvers, light airplane balloon bursting, ultra-light flying formation and flour bomb dropping, kite-making and choreographed kite-flying, hi-start launch gliding, control-line aircraft flying, pylon racing, banner towing, aero-modeling symposium and races between ultra lights and motorcycles. An estimated 100,000 visitors locally and from around the world come in to see this event.

In 1994, three years after the devastating effects of the Mount Pinatubo eruption, Tourism Secretary Mina Gabor, together with Korean businessman and hot-air balloon pilot, Mr. Sung Kee Paik, and British Airways General Manager, Mr. John Emery, and the German aviation enthusiast Max Motschmann engineered the first ever Philippine International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta to help jumpstart the local economy and spirit of the Central Luzon region with the commitment of developing hot air ballooning as an aviation sport in the country and making the Philippines one of the leading sports aviation and travel destinations in the Asia Pacific region. The 1994 event originally organized by the Department of Tourism (DOT), the Hot Air Balloon Club, the Clark Development Corporation and British Airways initially began with 21 balloon pilots from 10 countries and one entry from the Philippines, represented by Capt. Joy Roa, the only registered Filipino balloon pilot at that time. The success of the festival in 1994 brought about an increase in the number of participants in 1995 to 27 balloons including a basketless one-man balloon and two entries from the Philippines. The 1995 festival also saw the introduction of ultra light planes to the events.

By 1996 responsibility of the event was transferred from the Department of Tourism to Air Ads, Inc. under the watchful eyes of Captain Joy Roa who is also an avid licensed balloon pilot. Between 1996 and 1998, the growing popularity of the festival was expanded to include other aero-sports activities such as sky diving, paragliding, motorized hang gliding, remote controlled model aircraft (aero modelers), and kite flying. Aerobatic stunts and precision maneuvers courtesy of the Blue Diamonds and later the Red Aces of the Philippine Air Force became a regular attraction of the festival.