Marcus Green

Marcus was introduced to ballooning as a young medical student working in a haematology laboratory where the infamous David Bareford was also working. Having tried to parachute and learn to hang glide – ballooning seemed to be a suitably eccentric sport to get involved in. Having crewed for many years for David whose generosity allowed Marcus to clock hours and eventually gain his pilots licence, he first competed in 1996 as a pilot.

in 1987 he eventually purchased his first balloon for competitions G-ROCK a T and C 77. Many will remember the leaky dark blue G-ROCK envelope with its multiple burn holes or competition windows as Marcus would prefer them to be known. Since then he has moved onwards and upwards having owned and practically destroyed G-KNEE (genie) a MV-77 Ultramagic racer balloon and he is currently testing to destruction a Kubicek 70 extreme racer (G-OINT – call sign Joint)

In his first National championship he managed a lucky 6th place but his consistent lack of consistency never fails to amaze his longsuffering crew and wife. Over the years despite having scored a 0.0cm drop in Luxembourg and now having achieved a 0 m score in star in the sky (GPS marked) tasks on two occasions he still repeatedly manages to miss targets by kilometers.

Having finished in the top10 in a number of FAI category 1 competitions (Belgium and multiple times in Japan and Luxembourg) he has also wandered by pure luck in and out of the national team due to his performances in the national championships (2nd 2017 several 4th and 5th places over the years in other nationals) and the old style Grand Prix series where he has been placed first and second on several occasions (when the GP series represented true extensions of the British flying calendar.) He has represented the UK in European championships (Sweden, Hungary, Austria, Poland), the World Air games (Seville) and World championships (Austria). At the time of writing he will be flying in the British Team at the European Championship in Brissac 2017.

He hopes to continue competing for a significant number of years more – the threat and presence of the new younger pilots providing an even greater stimulus to fly with an increasing level of mediocrity both in this country and abroad.