The secret is finally out there for all the world to see. The great mystery of what a Scotsman wears under his kilt has been revealed.
Who knew it was a hot air balloon?
There's no secret about what this particular Scotsman has under his kilt.
Like me, around 20,000 people are staring straight up it to discover nothing more than a lot of hot air.
The sound of amplified bagpipes is ringing round the valley and when there is finally sufficient heat beneath these vast folds of tartan, this giant piper slowly drifts off towards Mont Blanc.
It's an extraordinary sight – a 156ft flying Scotsman floating over the cuckoo-clock chalets, snow-caked slopes and rocky peaks of Switzerland. But the view is even more impressive from where I'm standing. Because I happen to be in his sporran.
This is not exactly a conventional, purse-shaped sporran, but a wicker basket containing five people plus four tanks of propane which will heat up the air to keep us aloft.
From here, I see the spectators shrinking into ants as we are wafted away from the Swiss village of Chateau d'Oex and down the valley.
We pass over the simple graveyard where a much-loved former resident, David Niven, is buried. The pretty little mountain train chuff- chuffs its way up the hill in the opposite direction. The edge of the village gives way to farmland and the sunlit Alpine landscape is pure Heidimeets-Toblerone.
An awesome silence is broken only by the occasional roar from the propane tanks as the skipper, Muir Moffat, fires another burst of hot air into the piper's bowels. This thing would put the burn into any Burns Night party.
Now 69, Muir took up ballooning at the age of 48 when injuries forced him to give up rugby. "I was hating weekends until I had my first ride in a balloon and that was it," says the retired Unipart executive.
"And being 110 per cent Scottish, I thought it would be fun to have a balloon like this. It's meant to look like me. What do you think?"
Erm, what we think here at the Crabitat is that the Flying Scotsman looks like a character from The Simpsons. Or maybe a bad case of the DTs.
That is one expensive balloon ($500,000+). It is sewn together nylon fabric and must have been generated by a computer program. Amazing. I spent a fair amount of time hot air ballooning with a conventional balloon. Not as the pilot but as a passenger and crew member. I crewed for Malcolm Forbes for a day. It is fun but don’t think it isn’t dangerous.
The pilot has limited control over the balloon. I can’t understand why the article mentioned aerodynamics as you travel with the wind; there is no breeze in a balloon.
I went to 13,500 ft one day and both I and the pilot started laughing hysterically because we were low on oxygen. Fortunately a balloon returns to Earth when unattended. The pilot smartened up at 6000 feet.
Must … resist … fruit basket … joke. Too easy. Not sporting.
Good for Muir, though. Sounds like a fun loving guy. The Montgolfier brothers would approve.