MEET Sanshiro – our Yarra Valley Pilot 🎈 Born & raised in Japan & now proudly calls the Yarra Valley ‘home’.
Sanshiro @san346san is a ‘second generation’ balloonist, having grown up around balloons in Japan’s ‘world famous Ballooning Capital’, Saga City. Saga has hosted three World Ballooning Championships and annually hosts Asia’s largest hot air balloon event / competition which this year is celebrating its 43rd anniversary.🍾
Sanshiro’s first taste of the ‘high life’ came when he was just three years old!
“My first flight was with my father and I knew straight away that I loved ballooning. I remember often looking at the scenery from a foot hole in the basket when I wasn’t tall enough to look over,” he recalls.
After spending his childhood years chasing balloons and working as part of the ground retrieve team, Sanshiro started his own flying training in 2004 and attained his private Pilot Balloon Licence 2006.
Sanshiro arrived in Australia to complete his commercial pilot training and attained his Commercial Pilots Licence in 2017.
“I love my ballooning life and I really like to share the amazing experience with my passengers, especially when I see the look of delight on their faces.”
Sanshiro has been involved in many ballooning competitions throughout the world, although his most memorable ballooning experience to date has been a flight over Japan’s mountains and fields on a clear day at -23 degrees Celsius with white snow covering the ground.
“Global Ballooning has a strong international reputation for professionalism and training, so I feel very lucky to have been asked to fly here. I have really enjoyed seeing Melbourne city from the sky during my familiarisation training – it is such a challenging and amazing flight for a pilot and a really spectacular thing to do. I also really like the Yarra Valley with its incredible nature – it is definitely the most beautiful ballooning region I have flown in.”
“We are thrilled to have Sanshiro join us. He is a such a consummate professional, passionate and lovely guy to be around, our guests will be in very capable hands and well looked after.” – Kiff Saunders, Director
Global Ballooning Australia acknowledges that all of our launch & landing sites are situated on the ancestral lands of the Taungurung & Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations, and pay respects to the traditional custodians and their elders past, present & emerging.
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