UAE to open Middle East’s first hot-air-balloon museum

The UAE plans to open the Middle East’s first dedicated hot-air-balloon museum, turning a niche form of aviation into a platform for technical training, cultural exchange and tourism.

The museum, which will be called the “UAE Balloon Museum 7,” the UAE Hot Air Balloon Team said, but did not give a location or opening date. It is expected to become the seventh dedicated balloon museum worldwide.

The agreement was reached during a UAE delegation’s visit to the Saga Balloon Museum, timed with the team’s participation in the 39th Pacific Cup and the Saga International Balloon Fiesta.

During the visit, the UAE delegation reviewed technologies and systems used to manage and develop aviation- and balloon-focused museums and exchanged expertise with its Japanese counterparts.

The museum is expected to serve as an international platform to showcase the history and development of hot air ballooning as well as technologies used in balloon manufacturing and operation.

The museum will also chronicle the UAE Hot Air Balloon Team’s international journey, including overseas tours that carried messages of peace and tolerance. It will be managed by Emirati professionals and is intended to serve as a lasting educational and training hub.

Captain Abdulaziz Nasser Al Mansoori, head of the UAE Hot Air Balloon Team, called the project “a qualitative leap and a knowledge bridge” connecting the region with aviation’s past and present.

“The UAE is the first country in the region to have a comprehensive, integrated system in hot-air ballooning,” he said. The museum, he added, would help transfer global expertise to Emirati talent and support the country’s ambition to remain at the forefront of innovation.

“This aligns with the vision of our wise leadership to embrace innovative projects that consistently position the UAE at the forefront globally,” he added.

The UAE museum will join six existing museums worldwide: two in the United States and one each in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Japan.

The Saga Balloon Museum, which opened on October 1, 2016, as Japan’s first permanent hot-air-balloon museum, offers a glimpse of what visitors can expect when the UAE’s museum opens. It includes a flight simulator, which allows visitors to experience hot air ballooning in any weather, historical exhibits, and a theater showing footage from the annual Saga International Balloon Fiesta.

Kiyoshi Mori, the museum’s deputy director, welcomed the UAE team and voiced support for the project. The two institutions already have a shared history. The UAE team became the first to have an Arabic name inscribed on the Japanese museum’s honor boards, an achievement tied to its participation in the Pacific Cup and the Saga Fiesta. The new agreement extends that relationship from joint participation in international events to the establishment of a permanent institution in the UAE.