We are building a record of every hot air balloon in the world.
Every balloon below is a gap someone can close. You do not need a date, coordinates or a perfect photograph — you need to have seen it. If you have a shoebox of old balloon photos, this is what it is for.
We know these exist because someone logged them — but nobody has published a picture. Seen one? A photo with no date still counts.
Nobody searches for G-CJEZ. They search for scarecrow hot air balloon. Look at the picture and say what it is — that is the whole job.
One picture is a record; several are an archive. Different weather, different year, different angle — they all add something.
Separate from the sightings leaderboard on purpose. An archive upload has no date and no coordinates, so it must never move a sightings position — but filling a gap in the archive is worth something, and this is where it counts.
| # | Curator | First photos | Archive uploads | Tags kept | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grahame Bann Archive contributor | 960 | 984 | 0 | 7,752 |
| 2 | Graham Duke Archive contributor | 333 | 334 | 0 | 2,667 |
| 3 | Mike Clarke Archive contributor | 219 | 222 | 0 | 1,761 |
| 4 | Mel Kirby Archive contributor | 195 | 198 | 0 | 1,569 |
| 5 | Bill Teasdale Archive contributor | 184 | 187 | 0 | 1,481 |
| 6 | Andrew Garrett Archive contributor | 140 | 142 | 0 | 1,126 |
| 7 | Kevin Boon Archive contributor | 74 | 76 | 0 | 598 |
| 8 | Paul Coman Archive contributor | 73 | 73 | 0 | 584 |
| 9 | A Gibson Archive contributor | 57 | 62 | 0 | 471 |
| 10 | slowfly.it Archive contributor | 52 | 53 | 0 | 419 |
| 11 | Bob Garnett Archive contributor | 48 | 49 | 0 | 387 |
| 12 | Richard Gahan Archive contributor | 39 | 40 | 0 | 315 |
| 13 | Mark Stelling Archive contributor | 36 | 36 | 0 | 288 |
| 13 | UltraMagic Balloons Archive contributor | 36 | 36 | 0 | 288 |
| 15 | Christoff Deyaert Archive contributor | 30 | 33 | 0 | 249 |
| 16 | Cameron Balloons Archive contributor | 31 | 31 | 0 | 248 |
| 17 | Keith Sowter Archive contributor | 29 | 29 | 0 | 232 |
| 18 | Mark Duffy Archive contributor | 26 | 26 | 0 | 208 |
| 19 | Dave | 26 | 17 | 1 | 183 |
| 20 | Trev Read Archive contributor | 20 | 23 | 0 | 169 |
| 21 | Ian Grove Archive contributor | 20 | 21 | 0 | 163 |
| 22 | Dan Whitelock Archive contributor | 20 | 20 | 0 | 160 |
| 23 | Chris Lane Archive contributor | 16 | 16 | 0 | 128 |
| 23 | JEM Ballooning Archive contributor | 16 | 16 | 0 | 128 |
| 25 | Fay Shepherd Archive contributor | 15 | 16 | 0 | 123 |
Scoring: being the first to photograph a balloon is worth 5, an archive upload 3, a tag that survives review 2, and a vote 1 up to 25. Weighted by how hard the gap is to fill, not by how much effort the click takes.