About the Goldrush Ballooning Team

 

Ian is an owner, director of Goldrush Ballooning, and chief Pilot, and has been part of the company since 2001. Main backgrounds include: engineering, electronics and avionics.

Former  Operations Manager for the Australian Ballooning Federation and currently National Training Officer.

Ian has been involved in hot air ballooning since 1993 and has been a commercial balloon pilot since 1998, holding license endorsements for all hot air balloon classes.

Ian's operations as chief pilot for Goldrush in numerous areas, namely, Flinders Ranges, Tasmania, Victoria, NSW and SW Qld. as well as locally in Strathalbyn, make Goldrush the most regionally experienced operation in the Adelaide area.

 
Current qualifications and ratings: Private pilot instructor and examiner, night rating, commercial instructor and Balloon Maintenance Authority.

Still enjoys private flying and sharing the flying with friends and passengers.

 

 

Is a fire-fighter with the metropolitan fire service and has been for the last 20 years.

He joined Goldrush Ballooning 3 years ago and at that stage was a private pilot training to become a commercial pilot.

Steven has many years under his belt and qualifies as follows: Private Flying instructor/Examiner, ABF State Rep, SABAC president, CASA authorised Maintenance Authority, and commercial pilot. Steve has been involved with ballooning for over 20 years. Although only flying for the last 10, he is an excellent pilot and safety conscious. 
Steven thoroughly enjoys flying over Canberra and New Zealand.

Between fire fighting shifts, enjoys flying commercially with the company.

Many of Steve's committments are getting in the way of his ballooning these days, so we dont see as much of him as we should.

 

  

 

 

We currently have balloons under utilised, to remedy this and to be able to offer more passenger places, we are pleased to report we have recruited a standby pilot. We also have two others, training from the ranks of private pilot.

 

 

Kate has been around ballooning for the last 15 years, starting off as crew; she worked with many pilots gaining a wealth of knowledge along the way.

Kate has travelled all over Australia ballooning, and was lucky enough to go to Albuquerque in the States, the ballooning capital of the world.

Kate has worked with many balloons of all shapes & sizes.
Kate is now the Admin Manager of Goldrush and is the customer’s first point of contact; she handles all the bookings, customer’s questions and anything else the guys throw her way.

Kate loves to go for a fly herself when the boys give her time out of the office, which she tells us is not often enough.

Kate has many stories she loves to share about ballooning and her years on the road around balloons.