Pilots | Kiff Saunders
Kiff Saunders has had an interest in aviation from a very early age. At 15 he gained his gliding license, at Camden Airport, which is adjacent to his family home. Kiff's grandfather, Edward Macarthur-Onslow, was one of Australia's early aviators who, during the 1930's, founded the Macquarie Grove Flying School, at the site of what is now the Camden Airport. Kiff's interest in balloons was stimulated by the arrival in 1983 of Peter Vizzard's company, Balloon Aloft, at Camden Airport. Kiff began crewing for balloons touring around Australia, and his interest intensified. He began his pilot's training, under Peter Vizzard (Australia's only World Ballooning Champion), and gained first his private Pilot's License, then onward to his Commercial Balloon Pilot's License.
After working for Balloon Aloft for four years, Kiff decided to branch out on his own and bought a Tasmanian based ballooning company, which subsequently became Global Ballooning Pty Ltd. Since the early days as a single balloon operation, Global Ballooning has now grown in size incorporating 15 balloons and six commercial balloon pilots. Kiff is involved in ballooning activity all across Australia and the company has grown to become Victoria's largest ballooning company.
Kiff, as Director/Chief Pilot of Global Ballooning, is a delegate of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and is an Australian Ballooning Federation flight examiner. He has flown balloons extensively, both in Australia, and overseas, including such countries as Japan, Canada, Europe, China, USA and New Zealand. He has represented Australia at four World Ballooning Championships. In August 1995 Kiff achieved an 'Australian first' by being the first balloonist to fly across Australia's highest peak Mt. Kosciusko and over the Snowy Mountain range.
He helped to set up Nepal's first commercial balloon company offering passenger balloon flights over Katmandu and awesome views of the great Himalayan range.
In 2002 Kiff was inducted into the Australian Ballooning - 'Hall of Fame' for services to ballooning. He is responsible for training many of the commercial balloon pilots flying in Victoria today and his achievements were recognised in 2002 when he was inducted into the Australian Ballooning Federation Hall of Fame. Kiff also holds the 'Absolute Australian Altitude Record' for ballooning.
Border Mail - Saturday, July 4, 2009 (743.80 KB)