Thanks Manni and Toby for your positive feedback (anyone would think they were on e-bay reading that sentence)
I have to say I have got lazy when it comes to figures because in this era you do not need to have someone sat in the pilot seat unless you want one there. Balloons do not just sit on the ground fully inflated or ascend without people in them so I am forced to put someone in the basket. I purchased a box of 1/72 Airfix WW1 German Infantry because I know there will be something in there I can use. The two best candidates were the surrendering guy and the bored looking bloke in the big coat. I tried to use the former as he stands, the idea being his hands would be grabbing the rigging but they would not match up with any of the ropes in this one but a good idea I think for a future build. Instead I swivelled his arms around, chopped off the hands of another bloke and bunged in a bit of filler and voila! I had a guy holding something at arms length. To finish him off I added a belt and a couple of turnbuckles to his waist and a thin strip of filler to his hat to make it a cap, masking tape was used for a scarf. The other guy had his helmet chopped off and the cap was shaped out of filler. I messed up that guy a bit because in cutting off the flash the soft plastic turned into lots of flaky bits. Now to get rid of this you are supposed to very briefly run him over a flame and they should disappear. When I ran him over a flame most of his features disappeared including his face. I got over this by wrapping the scarf around his face and I have seen a balloonist wearing a scarf like this so I am not entirely cheating. I have noticed since photographing them their boots need doing again, the paint has been taken off by the clamps I held them in while doing all the other stuff, once again soft plastic has its pitfalls. The camera may seem over sized but the ones these guys used were massive. I made this from four strips of 1mm plastic card glued into an oblong and carved into shape. Bits of foil and copper were added for detail and it was painted over in silvergrey with the lens cover being clear plastic. Between the turnbuckles on his belt and the turnbuckles on the camera there is supposed to be wire or rope but I may omit this.
I have now put it off long enough and I really do now have to face the mother of all rigging jobs to move this on any further.
Thanks for looking in, Alan.