Helene Rogers has worked as a freelance journalist, as a communications officer, as a recruitment and media consultant and also in Women's and Children's Health for most of her life. Her love of history and words started at school and her love of ballooning much later. After seeing Chris Dewhirst's film of his first attempt to overfly Mount Everest, and having interviewed him, she was inspired to write Australia's ballooning history.

Helene's favourite balloon flight in Victoria was in the Yarra Valley and, in Turkey, it was flying over the Fairy Chimneys of Cappadocia at dawn. Helene lives in Melbourne and spent decades researching, writing and editing this book. She has also published a monograph, Brown, Dean and Coppin and Early Ballooning in Australia and was commissioned by Encyclopaedia Britannica to write the first chapter for their book, Hot Air Ballooning on the history of ballooning.