Fun Times

Just some shots of the fun we had in the past.... and hopes to have more fun in the future.

Patturns In The Sky in center. Pictures taken by friends.

Chasing Pitas Kiss down ( South ( or towards the top of this picture )) the river. Baskets barely touching the water. Wicker lets water in... You dont really float as much as glide along the waters surface.

As you can see here. There is a padded floor cover in my basket. See the wicker along the top? About 3 inches up from the bottom of the basket. If you get deeper in the river than three inches... your feet are wet.

If you cant control your flight you will either go up off the water or drop into it... and yes... there have been times that balloons have gone into water up to the bolster or higher... Yes they did survive the shock of being that wet and YEP.. the came back out of the water and flew on to land. Very wet but safe and sound.

Gotta be a pretty skilled Pilot to touch the surface but not go into it too deeply. 

Check out this flight into the Rio Grande... 

http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/h17f14bc9#h17f14bc9

Awsome Amazing Cool Wild Wooly Sweet

All good words.

Patturns Highperactive goes into the river chasing Pitas Kiss

http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/h17f14bc9#ha9239bb

Patturns in The Sky and a very artful and totally unexpected splash and dash on the West side in Rio Rancho... IN A PUDDLE!!!   Yay PUDDLES!!!

Stopped here... and had Mo, my son run over to the other side of the massive water feature and take a picture of us sitting there. Nice Choya cacti right there too. 

Links for the day..

A very good friend.. who is also an amazing artist... Top of my list

http://sampickard.co.uk/

Other less interesting but selected sites..

http://www.shorpy.com/node?page=525

http://www.qaronline.org/

Who How What!?

So did you go out and see the videos and how they came out with the two views? Thinking about the possibilities... they are limitless really..  Down camera! Attached to the throat line by velcro only. Talk about trust

http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/h33ae6697#h33ae6697

And another!

http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/h33ae6697#h3e8bd6e3

Its a totally cool location.. and you can rotate it around. I have tried a couple of different directions.

The one problem I had with this mounting place is its a total toss up if your going to get good video.

The chances of the line twisting or the camera shifting are great. Worth it if you have two or three cameras.

Or you can try these places....

Far out and back side...

Way far out on a 6 foot pole.... Awesome!

My favorite shot. Showing the passengers... showing the bottom of the basket.. showing the terrain around.

What I call a Hollywood position. Or Hollywood Shot!

There are times when you have skydivers on board. A good place is the sides as well as right down off the front of the burner frame. Here you can see the left cam but there is only a clamp where the down cam should be.

That's because we ran out of time and the balloon had to get off the ground.  Balloons wait for no one... and trying to reach up and connect the camera became impossible. Missed some great shots and video because of it. The video I made for the Pilot turned out fantastic even without it. But it could have been more.

Since I have been "under the weather" I have missed out on some special balloon flights. I am hoping to be able to get out with the great fiends I've missed for too long.

Time to fly again!

Time to capture the excitement again!

Links for today:

http://www.retrothing.com/

http://www.coolest-gadgets.com/

http://www.customnine.com/

And if your looking to get into ballooning here is a great used balloon guide.

http://www.aerostatz.com/buyingaballoon.html

Hot Hero Deux! Worth the time Sometimes.

Hero's Deux!When I get a chance I like to put on more than one camera. I have been asked about setting more than one camera on a balloon and at different angles.

Yes... you can put more than one camera on a balloon. Problem is you really need an arm for each camera. Even as light and small as these mini cams are they still weigh something. I have a solid articulated arm that I have a "T" plate on. I can put two cameras on it but it is right on the edge of slipping. Works okay in the summer.. not so good in the winter. 

Here is the link to a dual video I did. Two cameras.. one facing forward and one facing backwards with a slight pull towards the basket.

http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/h4311e23e#h1b866bb4

You can see the bow of the lens. At 170 degrees there is a significant bow. So what. I like the look. 

And we come to the problems with more than one camera per flight. 

Editing more than one video stream.

With a dual video you have to sync it. That is very hard. Once its synced you have to edit both. You have to verify the sound as well even if you are speeding it up like this version. It literally doubles the workload. It gets very complicated. If you tried getting this done at a commercial editing company it would cost you an arm and a leg. I did these to see if it could be done. 

It can be... if you have the time and patience.

So now the point I was going to make... more than one camera.. even at different angles means your adding to the workload. If you have three cameras and just clip here and then clip there., cutting from one camera to another is a very heavy workload. The cost in time doubles or triples. So the cost of the video doubles or triples. Unless your doing it for fun and ..... again.. you have the time.

BUT!

When it works and when you spend the time what you get is totally awesome!

Tomorrow... Where should you stick it!

Links for the day.

The above video link...  http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/h4311e23e#h478bd51e

http://www.gizmag.com/

http://www.filehippo.com/

http://www.faa.gov/main.htm

Scope Em Out!

Angle of Attack! What you lookin at?

So yesterday I went on about video cam equipment for your ballooning adventure.

Today I will go on ad nauseum about something else. Angles of Attack.... hmmm...

Ookay.. easier.. what are you lookin at? What are you trying to capture?

Are you sure where your camera is pointed?
Really?
Normally when I set up a camera on a balloon I will try and split the screen. Half the frame, who is in the balloon basket and half of what is outside of the basket.

So.. if you were to look at my set up you would see the clamp and flexi arm pretty much standing straight out from the burner frame on the opposite side of the red line and the camera ( GoPro ) upside down. It works great. Angle...about 35 degrees down and facing directly at the left front upright cover.... or a little more left.

This will give you that perfect half and half view if you are set at 170 degrees on the Go Pro or Contour if your contour allows 170 degrees. If the balloon has no turning vents and even if it does it will still rotate left or right as the winds act upon the envelope. Which means your view will move around. If you have vents you can adjust your balloon to "fly" the camera always watching the way your going. This will waste a major amount of fuel. Been there done that.

There are other places to set your camera but I will go into that maybe tomorrow. Since I am talking about this position Ill stick with it for now. From this place even with a short arm you will get all the action in the basket as well as the land, trees, and balloons going by. The left and lower shot show what I mean. I took this ( clipped ) from the video camera. Slightly off center left. I picked up my passenger ( her first flight ) in the camera and the action outside the basket as we flew along.

This shot also is set good but the camera arm slipped a bit and its now resting about 25 degrees down. I can see the back shot Contour camera and the clamp bottom and the fuel line. I want more of the basket you see in the shot above.

Now this shot from the video feed is great because I still have my passenger ( his many hundred flight but first over the Route 66 Bridge across the Rio Grande ) in camera view as well as the outside. It rocked by the way. We were trying to land and kept getting brushed off by the upper winds so came down to catch a right hook which by the way took us right over the Rio Grande at this point. This a sweet shot.

Its much more fun editing good video then editing around bad. Since I love editing it can be a love / hate situation....

So I check and check again. Fiddle and tweak and adjust until the balloon gets off the ground. If you look at me when the balloon takes of you will see me frowning.

Ill go into other places that are as good or almost as good as this place for your camera.

http://invisibleblack.zenfolio.com/p715442282/h323cbb05#h46775118

Remember I edit for a fee if your interested. Way cheaper than any standard video editing company. Massively cheaper than most. I love ballooning so I love editing balloon videos. I have even reedited videos for people.

HighperactiveVideos@gmail.com

Go out and get some footage!!

Links to bookmark...

http://www.kissesoffire.com/articles.html
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/
http://www.cribcandy.com/

Setting up for Videotaping...

Bouncing off the heavy ballooning chats to spend a bit of time on videotaping your fun.

http://contour.com/

First you need a video camera. Go with a Contour Or a GoPro.. there are lots of choices here. Great all around cameras that is quick to go. Easy switch on and off. Upgrades are plentiful and accessories are all there too.

                                                                 http://gopro.com/

Lots of details on both websites. Other video cameras are out there but really don't hold up like these do.

I have been using these manfrotto clamps.. But with a flexi arm on it.

Problem is that they keep slipping on the uprights. More in the winter than in the summer. Though I am getting tired of it as its a waste to find upon the balloon landing that your camera is pointing at the sky. 

I am thinking that a fixed clamp, like a bicycle clamp might work better but it also may gouge the burner frame metal. Fixed poles are great but if you have to land quickly or get it out of the way ... well you have a problem. That's why I like the flexi pole. 

GoPro with display back. The GoPro has the skeleton back on because even though you might get dust in the camera the sound with a full back on is so muffled its ... well ... unusable. 

One of the other problems I have run into with the GoPro that I never did with the Contour is that if you leave the battery in the camera it may.. and I say may... be dead when you want to use it. Or! I have had the the camera while the display back is on had the battery overheat inside the main camera. I didn't even know it. I was just checking the cam and it was hot to the touch. I pulled it all apart and it was okay but it was not a good thing. The camera or back could have been damaged. Just a thought. 

I lightly wrap my cameras in a lint free cloth and then tuck them in these water resistant bags. I get them at REI. http://www.rei.com/

Cheap and you can pick them up year round.

Woops!  Looking up!

Get a good quick memory chip ( for GoPro ). Class 4 or above. For the higher rated video capture speeds you will need it. (from Amazon) http://www.amazon.com/

Memory chip for the Contour..again class 4 or above.

I have used both camera while just holding it in my hand and have come out with great video. It is easier on the GoPro with the display back on but you can do it without as well. Whatever floats your boat.

That's about it for camera gear as I use it. A good rule of thumb is to have everything prepped the night before and take time in the morning or before your ready to go out and shoot to verify that you have everything you need with you.

Links You Should Bookmark..

http://www.kissesoffire.com/

http://lindstrand.com/

http://www.cameronballoons.com/

http://vintagraph.com

http://www.amazon.com/

You might find something interesting.

Evolution of a Flight... Patturns In The Sky Pt 2

Carry over from yesterdays blog.... we were at the cold air inflation... pushing cold air into the envelope to "pack" it... Then we get the burner going and "hot inflate". Slow short steady burns from the main burner heats to cold air inside.. and as you know hot air rises.. 

the envelope starts rising.. 

Up off the ground. This is a time to be cautious for breezes coming up and making it possible to burn the envelope or throat. Balloons lay out downwind of their basket to enable the envelope to rise without being pushed up, over or around. That is why there is a crew member on the crown line attached to the top. To control the rise and shifting of the envelope as it rises ( comes up ). 

Inside view of Patturns... You see the yellow circle at the top.. thats the full crown... It can be pulled down via the red line to open the top to let hot air out so the balloon can go down. The strange looking flaps at the middle bottom of the picture are the turning vents. One to turn clockwise and one to turn counter clockwise. You pull a green line or black line and this opens those vents ( which are really holes in the side of the envelope ) to exhaust air sideways.. causing a spin.

Off we go! Up and over... I believe we flew for about an hour. Two landings... here we come in for our final landing.... nice sign there... 

Caught by the most wonderful crew you could ever ask for... totally caught me and set me down. After a quick touchdown and swap passengers they taxied me to the other side of the road.

Setting me down again softly...

The crew turn the balloon so that the envelope will lay down the road. 

The balloon envelope is either pulled down or left to settle down with the crown line by a crew member. Again the envelope is directed with the wind going from the basket to the top of the balloon to help that big sail of fabric to settle safely down.

You can see the load tapes that the crown line is attached to on the left of the envelope.. like an point. There are two minds on how to drop an envelope.... if you ask I will tell you the difference.

Laid out and squeezed like a tube of toothpaste to get all the air out. There are many ways to do that too.. Ask away.. I promise I will tell.

Everything from here is backwards of the start... envelope is squeezed... then strapped ( sometimes ) then fed back into the envelope bag by the crew. They stand about 6 feet from each other and hold the envelope in their arms then stuff it in the bag.

Everything is packed up and put back in the trailer or truck and then everyone rides back to the launch site or other suitably nice place and tailgates. Initiations are done if we have new passengers. Food is eaten and drinks are..... swallowed....

At Fiesta everything is magnified. Including the tailgate spreads.... you never go away hungry or thirsty.

So there ya go..start to finish in pictures.... hope that helps you out with your idea of what goes into ballooning. Perhaps in the future I will go into detail on sections of the whole thing. We shall see.

Time for another subject. Or off subject. 

Here are a few cool links..

770 KKOB is always a good place for info and fun... http://www.770kkob.com/

The Striaght Dope... great for a reality shaker.... http://www.straightdope.com/

And

Geek Stuff For You... U..... Fun stuff... http://www.geekstuff4u.com/

Quit looking at me that way!

Evolution of a flight.... Patturns In The Sky

Here is a pictorial evolution of a flight with Patturns In The Sky...

Basket out of the trailer. Upright Mylar poles up... Balloon envelope on its cart in the background.

Burners up... Fuel lines being dropped from their safe storage position around the metal frame...

Burner check!! After checking for leaks then igniting each burner and whisper valve to verify operation and pressure of the tanks. There are pressure gauges on the bottom of the burners. I have a picture in my pockets somewhere....

FOUND IT!!!!  

See the gauges? The round things... LOL.. see the red wedges.. That's the No No Zone... Either you have too much pressure that you may burn the top of your balloon... yes its possible.. or the other way ( left side of the dial ) too low and your flame sucks and you have no power.  My way of thinking about it. Patturns is a big balloon at 90,000 c feet of air inside. These burners ( and rarely do I light both off at the same time ) run on the upper band of powerful. The whisper valves are those two little blue handles and are used for a more even and quiet burn instead of the BOOM! of the main burner. I use mine near horses or other animals that I think might get spooked. The other use of a whisper valve is to make your balloon glow at night... the flame is much more yellow instead of the blue of a main burn.

Talking too much again...

Here Nick is holding up the right side lines and one turning vent line while Rory attaches the lower lines to the top of the basket frame. Looks like a total mess of lines. It does work out most times and when it gets tangled you can reconnect and untangle while cold inflating.

Walking the envelope out of the bag. Most balloons are hand carried while the balloon is being pulled out. This one is pampered and has a cart. So you just walk the cart backwards while a crew member lifts it out.

The envelope laid out.. Its long.... long... but its stretched out. Once it fills with cold air it will draw in while the equator spreads out.

Cold inflation starts.. That red thing in the bottom left corner is the Tecumseh 10 Horse Power fan. Bloomin thing is so powerful it only takes a few minutes to pack this balloon. Serious oomph!

Here I am with Rory in the top of the envelope straightening out some of the crown positioning lines. It was very flipped around. Took a while to get it to set right and not have any lines knotted up or hooked around other lines. It all worked out great.

All the velcro is hooked in and the crown  as you can see in the above picture is sucking up into the top of the envelope. I am peeking in to check again that all the lines are running where they are supposed to be and it gives me a very comfy feeling knowing it before I go lighting thing off or leaving the safe ground.

Whew!!!.. Enough for tonight. Ill continue with the evolution tomorrow.... but.... that is what you will see in any balloon made... there are some deviations to this but normally it is... What I said about safety before is the rule... Check.. check again... have someone else check again. 

Oh...Dang.. a bit more.... see that thicker line that's going from the right upper side of the picture to that pulley then down towards the left bottom? That is my red line. It goes from being attached to the left inside of the envelope to this pulley then down to about the middle right inside then down to the basket from there. The pulley makes it easier to pull the top down from the pressure of the hot air. 

So since I talked all about this before now you have pictures to put with the words of the Ballooning And You sections of my blog. Try and connect some of the names I gave you with the pictures. 

You know how much fun it is to share this with the good people around me... WAY! If I was not being throttled by this head cold which followed a sore throat which followed a sinus infection... Id be out there flying my A*$ off. Okay.. maybe not that much but dang!  It gets in your blood and .. well the dust gets just everywhere.... Ask the crew about the cool designs on their clothes after squeezing an envelope out here!

Have a Great Evening!  I say that a lot.. but I really mean it when I say it... REALLY!

Fiesta stuff... and ya know!

Another busy day at the office. New phone system and I have to key in speed dials one by one and also use the keypad numbers to enter the names. I got 8 out of 30 done. Not bad. Tomorrow.. more of the same plus more and mailbox setup. Should be interesting.

Well.. I said I would be putting some stuff up on the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Just some map kind of things to help you out of town new Pilots..

The Albuquerque International Balloon Biesta Park... off season. You can see that the park is West of I-25, North of Alameda Blvd., South of Roy / Tramway road and East of 2nd street.. Those are those yellow lines there around the field.

Pull up google earth and you can check it out like I did. 

Here are the locations of the LANDING.. where Registration is on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before ( and during ) Fiesta. When you come in for Registration remember to get onto Alameda and turn North of Balloon Museum Drive... ( Warning... Alameda and Balloon Museum Drive are closed during Fiesta ).

Anddd.... The Briefing Tower... Where the morning briefs and glow briefs are held. Gotta be there!! Better be there. Massive amount of information for Pilots new and old. Lots of Tequila!!!

Okay.. Enough of Fiesta for now. Pass the info along to any you know who are hoping to get accepted to come. Lots more info to come... if you want to know anything let me know and I will get you the info.

Here is a link to the rules and regs of Fiesta...http://www.balloonfiesta.com/uploads/pdfs/2012Rules.pdf

Now... Important things!  

Here are, from left to right.... Takach A Breeze, Kisses Of Fire, and Patturns In The Sky doing a nice controlled launch in Los Lunas. It was a great day with very smooth winds heading in nice directions.

Flying over Albuquerque's West side just slightly West of Coors Blvd. We were chasing the Rainbow Ryders across the sky towards the North West. This was also a nice day to be heading out. The winds in Albuquerque are awesome most times. Sometimes the suck... and when they do its bad. But mostly good.

Better than most places and the steerage is fantastic. You will find that if your here for Fiesta. You can get from the field, to the river, into the river, and back up into the sky and out to the open areas of Rio Rancho. 

Its most excellent!

Bob lifting off the field to points..... well who knows... If I remember right this was a pretty brisk day to fly. Bob is a very good ( way ) Pilot and is not bothered by things like... wind speed or approaching stationary things.... He just laughs... HAH!   Laughs.... I could tell you stories..... big hairy ones... but not now... keep you guessing.

Now I would add some cool links to a friends pictures if I knew the link.. I think I will ask her what it is.. She is a good photographer... she just hides all her shots.... strange that!

Mmm... before I close this for the night... What do you want to know about flying here... We have gone over  balloon words ( phrases ) and and what to wear and what to do when getting a ride. We aren't talking about initiations. Nope. Maybe I will load some more pictures of important facts of Fiesta for new Pilots.

Not a bad idea.

Party on!