For Randall, ballooning is more than just flight, it\u2019s about that feeling of \u201cbeing free up there\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt never gets old.\u201d<\/p>\n
Randall said Lulu was designed for his daughter, which made flying it extra special.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels like we are taking a bit of her creativity into the sky.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prickly Pete is a porcupine-shaped hot air balloon.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Prickly Pete was also a family design. He was inspired by pilot Brad Burdue\u2019s wife, after their daughter wished for a pet porcupine.<\/p>\n
Burdue spent 30 years in the aviation industry, but had an unconventional start in hot air ballooning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI traded aircraft maintenance for flight lessons, and I\u2019ve never looked back.<\/p>\n
\u201cBallooning has taken me places I never imagined, and meeting people from around the world is the best part.\u201d<\/p>\n
The balloon is nearly brand new, having only had 10 hours of flying time so far. <\/p>\n
It is named after one of Burdue\u2019s most dedicated crew members.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got attitude, just like his namesake, but he makes people smile everywhere we go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lulu the Leopard and Prickly Pete will join a line-up of local and international balloons at Balloons Over Waikato 2026.<\/p>\n
The annual festival will this year take place across a whole week, from March 21 to March 28 and start with the Zuru Nightglow, at the University of Waikato.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Randall, ballooning is more than just flight, it\u2019s about that feeling of \u201cbeing free up there\u201d. \u201cIt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,21045,95,192,83328,1522,13313,7997,83325,111,43,139,1536,69,1523,40290,83327,83326,8460,9877,1962,199,223,1524,1533,379],"class_list":["post-117562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-above","tag-and","tag-are","tag-balloon","tag-balloons","tag-giant","tag-leopard","tag-lulu","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-next","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-pete","tag-porcupineinspired","tag-prickly","tag-shapes","tag-skies","tag-special","tag-take","tag-the","tag-waikato","tag-will","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}