The balloon envelope is custom fabricated to your personal design with any combination of the 19 standard colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Gold, Kelly Green, Royal Blue, Lt. Blue, Navy Blue, Purple, Teal, Turquoise, Dk. Pink, Black (silicone or polyurethane coating), Lt. Green, Dk. Green, Dk. Purple, Tan, Silver/Gray and Maroon (polyurethane coating). Its shape is very pleasing to the eye and the design lends itself well to artwork. The standard fabric is an extremely tough 1.9 ounce rip-stop nylon with a durable silicone or polyurethane coating. This is the toughest standard fabric used in the industry today and assures a durable, long life envelope.

We also offer our HEAD Lite for the world travelers, the competive pilots and for those who are just tired of a 200+ pound envelope. The fabric in the HEAD Lite is a 1.1 ounce rip-stop nylon with a silicon coating. The HEAD Lite fabric when new has all of the tensil strength of our heavier standard fabric. Naturally, the envelopes do not last as long as one made from our standard fabric, however a 77,000 cubic foot HEAD Lite envelope will fit in a duffel bag and only weighs approximately 115 pounds!

The envelopes may be made up of either 16 or 24 gores of horizontal panels, all of which are joined together with double lock stitched, french feld seams. The numerous horizontal and vertical seams provide added ripstop protection. The many seams allow endless, no-charge color patterns, as any panel may be any color at no extra charge. This modular construction also allows for easy panel replacement, which helps to reduce the cost of repairs. The basket weight is dispersed through the use of high strength nylon webbing, which runs vertically up the entire length of each gore seam.

To the load webbings are attached the envelope suspension lines. The standard suspension lines are 1/8", 7 x 19 stainless steel aircraft cable, which insure reliability and strength. Non-conductive Kevlar suspension lines are available as an option. HEAD's exclusive NexKevtm suspension lines utilize 1" Kevlar webbing encased in fire resistant Nomex.

At the mouth of the envelope, rugged, flame resistant, 6 ounce Nomex is used for the #1 envelope panel. At the bottom of the envelope you may have either a scoop or a skirt, also made of Nomex. The heat resistant ring created by the Nomex helps to virtually eliminate all of the small burns and crisp fabric caused by radiant heat. Standard Nomex colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Royal Blue, Navy Blue, Black and White. Optional colors are: Green, Purple, Sand, Teal, Maroon, Pink and Grey.

The standard top is the familiar Parachute top. Our engineers have calculated the geometry of the pull angles to give you the easiest direct pull parachute top available. If you still require something even easier to open, a pulley system may be installed. Another option is the patented SMARTVENTtm . This top gives you the venting capacity of a parachute top along with the ability for rapid deflation.