Hot air balloonist Kiff Saunders knows he has a great job.

"Everyone who comes up here tells me I have the best job in the world," he told 774 ABC Melbourne's Rafael Epstein.

Mr Saunders operates one of the few companies who sail balloons over the city of Melbourne most mornings.

He said flying in a balloon was "like a magic carpet ride".

"It is lighter than air and you don't get any sensation of speed," he said.

"The world is revolving underneath you."

Kiff Saunders during take-off. He says he started hot air ballooning as a way of avoiding responsibility. ( 774 ABC Melbourne: Simon Leo Brown )

A flight is typically busy for Mr Saunders as he uses bursts of fire to chase wind currents up and down the atmosphere.

All the while he maintains communication with air traffic control and the other balloon companies which fly together so as not to pose a risk to the interstate and international air traffic jetting in and out of the city's airports.

A life in the air

Kiff Saunders says hot air ballooning is like taking a magic carpet ride. ( 774 ABC Melbourne: Simon Leo Brown )

Mr Saunders grew up around aviation and started flying aircraft when he was just 15.

"My grandfather set up one of Australia's first flying schools, just out of Sydney, in the mid '30s," he said.

He was first exposed to ballooning when hot air balloons started using the same airport his grandfather did.

"At that stage I was in that bohemian [stage], trying to avoid any kind of responsibility, and the ballooning lifestyle really suited me," he said.

He learned to pilot hot air balloons and in 1987 took up an offer to be the driver of a balloon troupe travelling around Australia.

Ballooning has since taken Mr Saunders around the world and he has flown over Mount Kosciuszko, Kathmandu and the North Pole.

In the 1990s he bought a failing Tasmanian ballooning business and now operates more than 20 balloons globally.

His company owns the Sky Whale — the many-breasted flying sculpture by artist Patricia Piccinini that debuted during Canberra's Centenary celebrations and now travels the world.

Kiff Saunders has been piloting balloons for nearly 30 years. ( 774 ABC Melbourne: Simon Leo Brown )

A grounding experience

A motorcycle accident in 2010 led Mr Saunders to develop an easy-access balloon basket capable of carrying people with a mobility impairment.

"I was hit by a car driving on the wrong side of the road, which left me with a broken neck and a shattered leg," Mr Saunders said.

A motorcycle accident made Kiff Saunders re-evaluate his priorities. ( 774 ABC Melbourne: Simon Leo Brown )

"It put me out of action for a year while I recovered," he said, adding that he spent two-and-a-half months in hospital.

Mr Saunders said the accident changed his perspective on life.

"Prior to my accident I was very much focused on business," he said.

"It was really humbling for me to realise that. Really, life is short."

He developed the easy-access basket with the help of his transport accident lawyers, who he said "fell in love with ballooning".

Even the giantic Chadstone shopping centre looks small from the basket of Kiff Saunders' hot air balloon. ( 774 ABC Melbourne: Simon Leo Brown )

"We got the manufacturer to build it and type certify it, and we went to [the Civil Aviation Safety Authority] and we got them to rewrite the rules so we could take people [ballooning in it]," he said.

While Mr Saunders was in hospital he spent time thinking about how he would have been remembered if he had died in the road accident.

"One of the things that I learned from my accident is that there's a tremendous network of people out there who do the most astonishing work for little credit," Mr Saunders said.

He said his reward for creating the easy-access basket "has been tenfold" of what he had anticipated.

Balloon passengers can see parts of Melbourne that most people will never enter. ( 774 ABC Melbourne: Simon Leo Brown )

"People who would have never had that opportunity, to be taking them on a balloon flight over Melbourne ... just the thanks that they give you — no money could ever reward you as much," Mr Saunders said.

"Talk about return on investment."

Layover landing

The stillness that pilot and passengers feel as the balloon sits in the wind comes to an abrupt halt when the basket ultimately returns to Earth.

"Everything reverses, and the basket makes contact with the ground," Mr Saunders said.

The balloon often comes back to Earth with a bump in a so-called layover landing, where the basket comes to rest on its side.

"You kind of bounce along, you tip over, everyone laughs," Mr Saunders said.