Picture This Ballooning made a striking appearance drifting above the city on Tuesday morning amid reconnaissance efforts to bring commercial flights to Ballarat.

Regional ballooning used to be popular across the state until tighter licensing restrictions but Picture This general manager Ben Phillips said timing was right to fly in Ballarat once more.

Mr Phillips said there was strong demand from Ballarat residents taking to the skies in Picture This flights over central Melbourne, the Yarra Valley and Daylesford (where the company flies as Daylesford Ballooning).

Flying in still skies above Ballarat on Tuesday confirmed what Mr Phillips and his team had hoped.

“Ballarat is really beautiful, you get the suburban and the beautiful trees and close by forest in one flight,” Mr Phillips said. 

“You can see all the old buildings – we went quite close to Town Hall and a little bit of Lake Wendouree where you can really see all the islands on the lake, then across the to north where there’s all the trees.”

Pilots made two private flights and tested a few launch pads on Tuesday