About Us

  • The Molly Mae Balloon Team was formed in 2008 by team pilot Jamie. The team was named in honour of his daughter, who sadly passed away the same year due to complications following her premature birth. It became Jamie’s way of remembering her in a positive and lasting way.
  • Over the years, Jamie has raised money for premature baby charities and other good causes, using the team and its balloons to support fundraising efforts. He is also a passionate advocate for welcoming new people into the hobby of ballooning.
  • The team is based in Northampton but travels to various events across the UK each year. Locally, the team also attends community events to help promote ballooning and share their passion with others. The team is made up of dedicated and enthusiastic individuals who love every aspect of the sport.
  • We’re always looking for new team members and are happy to answer any questions from ballooning enthusiasts. We're also keen to collaborate with local companies, offering hot air balloons as a unique and eye-catching platform for advertising.
  • Would you like to see your company logo floating high above the Northamptonshire countryside—or even further afield across the UK? If so, get in touch—we’d love to hear from you!


Hot Air Balloons

Meet the team!

These are our current passionate enthusiasts behind Molly Mae Ballooning!

Jamie Edwards

Owner & Pilot

  • Jamie attained his pilots license in 2009 and has been flying locally in Northamptonshire as well as around the UK ever since. He has flown a wide variety of balloons including a number of special shapes and is passionate about training the next generation of balloonists.
  • Jamie first became interested in ballooning as a child being taken to the local Northampton balloon festival by his Nan and her best friend. This passion grew over the years more and more until 2007 when, with the help from his family he purchased his very first hot air balloon. The balloon was an ex sponsored balloon carrying the Ford Sandicliffe logo and from the there the passion grew even more and he began to learn to fly. He gained his license in 2009 and continued flying from there. Jamie has been involved in the training of several pilots who have gone on to attain their licences and this remains as a big focus of his.
  • Jamie’s favourite thing about ballooning is the freedom and challenge that flying hot air balloons offer. Every flight is different and provides a unique experience as do different types of balloons especially some of the more unique shapes.
  • Jamie's favourite balloon is G-BVZT which has the team name Molly Mae on the side. Jamie purchased this balloon early in 2008 with no artwork on the side. Sadly the same year he lost his daughter due to complications from a premature birth and chose to name the balloon in her memory. The balloon was used for a number of years to raise money for premature baby charities but sadly is no longer flown due to its age. However it remains in the care of Jamie and is inflated on special occasions.
  • Jamie's favourite ballooning memory to date has been seeing the members of the Molly Mae Balloon Team come together as strangers and enthusiasts but becoming a close knit team and group of friends
Jamie Edwards

Liam Twort

Team Member

  • Liam joined the Molly Mae Balloon Team in 2025 and has a been a regular on our flights and at events since. He has a real passion for ballooning and a fantastic attitude towards learning new skills.
  • Growing up Liam attended the Northampton Balloon Festival with his family most years, back then it was a huge event; probably one of his favourite times of the year! His family would often spend the whole weekend at the festival enjoying everything it had to offer. Since then, he has always enjoyed hot air balloons.
  • Liam thinks that there something magical about hot air balloons from watching them inflate, take off and fill the skyline.
  • He enjoys sharing this with likeminded people and working with the team to ensure others can experience the same enjoyment.
  • When asked about his favourite balloon Liam said that there are so many to choose from but the Churchill Dog was always a favourite of his. Amusingly, he recalls seeing it as a child and saying his famous catchphrase, “Oh Yes” as he took to the skies!
  • Liam has two favourite ballooning memories. Firstly, being at the Northampton Balloon Festival and watching the mass ascents as a child, trying to keep track of the multiple balloon arenas to not miss any big special shapes! Secondly, his first balloon flight which was with Molly Mae Ballooning!
Jamie Edwards

Liam Menzies

Team Member & Trainee Pilot

  • Liam joined the team in 2023 and has been a regular team member having attended nearly all of our flights since. He is extremely passionate about ballooning and has been a big driving factor behind the team developing over the last couple of years. Liam handles most of the teams social media posts and creates our Youtube videos. In 2025 Liam, with the help of his family purchases his own balloon envelope and has begun to learn to fly. He is making good progress so expect to see him flying across the skies of Northamptonshire in the coming years.
  • Liam has loved hot air balloons for as long as he can remember and has been attending local events with his family since he was a young child. Liam has collected a wide variety of balloon related merchandise over the years and has amassed a massive collection of badges and photographs. Liam would always attend the meet the pilot events at the local balloon festivals and enjoyed his first flight with the team in 2019. Since then he and his family kept in touch until he joined the team in 2023, and the rest is history!
  • Liam doesn’t have a favourite thing about ballooning, he loves it all equally.
  • Liam’s favourite balloon is his own balloon, a Colt 77A, G-OAWS. First used to advertise Auto Windscreens in the 90’s following its retirement from commercial flying it had the middle part replaced and was used privately until it was purchased by Liam and his family. The balloon is unique in that it is one of the very few balloons remaining that has a tri-vent deflation system which was an early version of a rapid deflation system to get the balloon down quickly on landings.
  • Liam’s favourite ballooning memories are his first flight with the team in 2019 where we flew over the Leicestershire countryside and his first flight in 2025 in his own balloon.<
Liam Menzies

Helen Goldring

Team Member

  • Helen joined the team in 2024 after her first flight with the team for her sons 18th birthday. Once her knees had recovered from the hard (but controlled) landing she took up the invite to join and has been a regular at all of our flights since.
  • Helen has loved hot air balloons since she first saw them as a teenager at the Northampton Balloon Festival in 1989. The sky was full of the amazing special shaped balloons. Helen always remembers her first balloon flight and how she landed in the field next to the giant Action Man balloon.
  • When Helen had her own children they would always go to the balloon festival and watch in awe as the balloons took off, and then hope to follow one to its landing spot. It then became a tradition to collect the pin badges of the balloons that they followed on their balloon chase! Helen and her family followed the team balloons on a number of occasions over the years.
  • Helen’s favourite balloons are Rupert the Bear and Bertie Bassett.
  • Helen finds ballooning a fun and relaxing hobby her favourite parts are enjoying flights at both sunrise and sunset and of course the balloon glows after dark. There are great opportunities for photography too so there is something for everyone to enjoy.
Helen Goldring

Liam Goldring

Team Member & Trainee Pilot

  • Liam joined the team in 2024 alongside Helen after a flight for his 18th Birthday which he loved. Since then, he has been a regular at our flights and at events. In 2025 he started his journey to become a balloon pilot and did really well on his first lesson.
  • Liam has loved hot air ballooning from the age of 3 when his mum started taking him to the Northampton Balloon festival. It soon became tradition to follow the balloons to their landing site. This passion then grew even more following his first flight and he has flown several times since then.
  • Liam doesn’t have a favourite balloon but enjoys seeing new ones when they are made, special shapes and of course the team balloons.
  • Liam has lots of fun memories of ballooning from his first flight and challenging retrievals, to inflating and launching the balloon.
Liam Goldring

Phil Hudson

Team Member

  • Phil first became interested in ballooning after attending the 1st Northampton Balloon festival as a child in 1989. After that it was something that he really wanted to get into but trying to find someone who did it was quite difficult, after many years had passed Phil saw a friend suggestion on Facebook so sent a random friend request to pilot Jamie and started talking, after that he got involved with crewing and ended up helping other pilots too.
  • Phil’s favourite aspect of ballooning is the socialising and getting to meet and talk to like minded individuals.
  • Phil’s favourite balloon is Sonic the Hedgehog from the 90’s as he used to play Sonic 1 and 2 on the Sega Megadrive at the time so that was very topical back in the day, However all of the special shapes were very unique and it was hard to choose one really, other favourites are Rupert the Bear, Caramel Bunny, Tesco Trolley and the list goes on!
  • Phil’s favourite ballooning memory is from the balloon flight he received for his 21st birthday over 20 years ago, however once he had learnt to drive he used to get up early and park up to watch the balloons take off in the morning and going to follow them.
Phil Hudson

Craig Stevenson

Team Member

  • Craig is the longest serving member of our balloon team and has been instrumental in keeping the team running over the years. He is always willing help at short notice and has stepped in numerous times to ensure flights to events have gone ahead. As well as Craig his two daughters often join him and the whole family love balloons. Hopefully Craig and then in the future his daughters will go on to attain their licences.
  • As many of the team have also said Craig’s love for ballooning stems from memories of growing up in the 90s attending the Northampton balloon festival and watching 80-100 balloons of all shapes and sizes take to the skies over the local area. They have always amazed him since!
  • Craig doesn’t a favourite aspect of ballooning, he enjoys all of it. He loves being in the air having a flight especially going over all the streets and places that he knows so well but he also enjoys being the retrieve and trying to get there for when the balloon lands and having a laugh with the other team members on the retrieve!
  • Craig’s favourite balloon would probably be the action man one in the 90s but that is closely followed by the coffee jar that the team previously owned. Craig was there for its first flight.
  • Craig’s favourite ballooning memories are from each year at the racecourse waking his parents up each morning to look out of their window to see if the balloons were flying that morning and then going to watch them in the evenings. More recently though it would be a flight from the Northampton Balloon Festival 2024 when Craig and his daughters enjoyed their first flight together with Jamie. The girls have now got into ballooning just as much as Craig!
Craig and his daughters

Katie Gower

Team Member & Pilot

  • Katie has been around balloons for most of her life and started flying them at the age of 12! She got her license in time for her seventeenth birthday making her the youngest female pilot in the world at the time. Katie is very keen to see ballooning grow and loves seeing new people getting involved.
  • Katie’s passion for ballooning was natural as her father was also massively involved in it so she didn’t really have a choice! This passion grew over time and eventually Katie set herself the goal of gaining her license. She was trained by several experienced pilots and since attaining her license has flown a variety of different balloons at a variety of different events. She has even gone on to build her own hot air balloon with the help of another enthusiast! As well as doing her own thing, Katie finds the time to help out the Molly Mae Balloon team and also flies with us regularly.
  • Katies favourite thing about ballooning is the social side and getting to catch up with old friends and make new ones at events, she is also passionate about inspiring new people to take up the hobby. She also shares the hobby with her partner David who often comes out flying and helps out where he can.
  • Katie has two favourite balloons G-CBRK which is an old Ultramagic Demonstrator balloon that she learned to fly in and co owned with her Dad and G-CLNS the home build balloon that she made and her main flying balloon.
  • Katies favourite ballooning memory to date has been obtaining her license and also arriving to her prom in a balloon basket being towed on a trailer, now that was an entrance!
Katie Gower

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