Sun Dogs, Framily, Currency, Proficiency and you..

Its Sunday already!... Its Sunday AfterNOON ALREADY!!! No.. nope... I was cheated! I want some 12 hours back.... I may have slept through it.....

Dedicated love for his sport. Pretty Boy Kurt's legs. Excellent artwork...
( He has no clue I took this picture ) LYBG!

To back up a bit... At work our new Leibert Air handlers are in and making all sorts of smooth powerful wooshing noises in the Electronics room. Sounds of perfection and decisive cool air pleasure. I am a happy person... Happier.

I will be set until retirement as soon as my building lease is complete and the modifications I want are finished to upgrade our office space for our staff... Okay... maybe for a year or two.....    Love this job.

Now forward to this weekend....

Mo and Trent wanted to see how a racer feels for reals... Mo has flown mine a few times but always with me riding rough shod... or back basket driving.... They tried Saturday but the winds were to "stupid" to get much training out of it and almost everyone but the ride balloons sat on the ground.

It was decided to try again Sunday. Mo got everything out and crew were there and ready to go but Trent had to work that night so was probably dead to the world this morning. So Mo took a friend and had some fun. First thing he did after launching is spin the balloon as quickly as it can ( which is pretty good at making you hurl your breakfast ) as he ascended. Damn ( lovely ) thing is like a top.

Then off to the South then caught the fast North just above and he was gone. We chased and I took a bunch of pictures, some of which are below and others are going to be posted to FB or IG here soon.

He cruised North then tried to draw South at the lower level but that had gone away and was replaced with a heavy West South West or West wind. We chased and he ended up dropping into an Arroyo off Southern in Rio Rancho for a nice "Airplane" type landing with a good 100 foot drag. Smooth soft sand! That was fun for me because I could drop into the arroyo with the Ram and fishtail all the way to him....

Pack up was quick and smooth as everyone ( but me ) is young and healthy... I stood back and handed tie straps and over saw the process. Its a good job and someone has to do it. I need to remember a chair next time.

Back to the field after doing a nicer rear drift loop in the sand and tail-gating and many many good conversations on flying, balloons and fixed wing and air control towers and calling in and ... well lot of other things...

Selected shots below with explanations....

First let me say that I did the unthinkable and read a book ( reading a book ) on my camera at last and I changed a bunch of setting that were supposed to help with light and focus and did horrible things to my shots from shot to shot.... Now I have to remember what I changed and set it back. Its a great book but the settings do not work for hot air balloon shooting... So there are some blown out shots here and there I cant fix.

The Ram is in place saving mode ( Or I have an invisible trailer and balloon ). It was very busy on this little patch of dirt as is usual for this time of year when people are getting current or shaking the rust and dust off prior to flying Fiesta. I have gotten some of that r&d off myself. Next is wash and clean everything....

A nice crop of a burner check. Or creating your own personal hot cloud.

The sun is peeking over the Sandia's. Due to the spot metering it drove the light out of the shot. Works for me this time.

Lindstrand Racers are the sweetest things to fly. But the difference in connections from other type balloons can have you scratching your head a bit if you have never seen them before ( simpler not harder ). No problem for this crew who have worked on many different types. 24 lines from the throat to the burner frame plus three control lines makes for some adjustments.

Trying to inflate a twisted envelope.. It will fix itself but it was interesting.

How many crew members are needed for what size of balloon... But... as I have stated before.. many hands make light work. But come on!!!! I tease.

Pretty Boy Kurt stands in front of his, JP and Jane's balloon, Burning Desire. One pretty envelope. Who da man? You Da Man!

Mo gets a ride up as the basket comes off the ground. She was reluctant to let go today.

A hopper hops around  about. Wish I had a cleaner shot of the Pilot as he holds the rotating ring above his head....

A big error in the spot metering gave me this very nice shot of Seth doing a Sundog shot. Very colorful even with the dark.

Coming up soft, crew working to keep the fabric away from the flame and get the balloon upright so that it can fill out. Beautiful envelope, great teamwork and looked like fun. ( expanding the shot shows the teamwork ).

What the Sony RX10V4 does nicely is bokeh shots with aplomb! Showing off the turning vent in the front balloon and giving that feel of distance as well.

Now full of hot air and going up into the air... good job to the crew for that evolution. The sun from the opposite side usually makes for bad light shots but this fabric allowed a lot of light to pass through. ( a bit of blow out thought ).

Mo driving Highperactive along. I limited the shots to only a few here. When your balloon is in the air for once and you are not in it ... Okay.. I really wanted to get a lot of shots of her in the air since I was not flying... I did. Could have been better but it was good anyway.

A very nice sky with fluffy clouds makes for a good balloon shot. If it was just the balloon and blue sky it would not have as good a punch as it does with them there.

I love roads. This one was reminiscent of a real old back road... Yeah it kinda was ... with a crack every 20 feet that your tires go .. bump, bump over and there is grass growing and nothing much else...  Yes I am weird.

Mo dropped Highperactive into an arroyo at about 9 mph. Soft sand and a good stretch of space made it perfect... he had a 100 foot or so drag to stop and ripped out the top to stop her dragging farther.

The drag marks. Landings like this are mostly fun. Well planned and prepared for the are exciting and a good laugh. This was one of those.

Mo taking a short break before packing everything up. Love the build quality of the Lindstrand USA team. This balloon is eight years one month old and looks like new.  A little TLC on my part and good construction on Lindstrands part.

It is very necessary to have four wheel drive if you venture into one of the local arroyos. Even some four by fours cant deal with the softness. BUT... its a very very nice place to put a hot air balloon down in.

So now we have something like 19 days left until the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta starts. Everyone is trying to prepare for or have prepared or are just winging it ( me ). 550 plus balloons in one place at one time .. it just boggles the mind every time we get to this time of the year.

I am very lucky to be able to take all the time off work.. The people I work with are true professionals and wonderful. They will keep the process rolling and I get to go play. They also know I am completely reachable right after I land....not that that has ever been necessary. A pre Fiesta shout out to all at the NWSFO Albuquerque office! WOO HOO!!!!

If I get the chance and the tower will let me I will try and buzz the office once...or as Maverick stated... Requesting a flyby...... A lot slower I would hope.

More on preparing for the largest Hot Air Balloon event in the world... next weekend!

Skipping a week and life as we know it.. and C Springs Labor day lift off thoughts.

So last weekend I was a the Colorado Springs Labor Day Lift Off or #LDLO

I didn't have time to do my blog...  I do now.

I've changed their logo to make it more inclusive of ME! Well...

Over all I give the rally a 10/10 with minor issues.... real minor.

 ....Awesome! Even with all the people you have to shoo off the field so that you can lay out your envelope to fly..they were nice and cordial and if you told them the safest place to be they would be awesome and would scoot there abouts. The people were wonderful.

I would love to see a rolling launch site process. Those that were on the edge of the lake this year should rotate all the way to the North section and all sections should move towards the lake. That way everyone gets a good possible in the lake without winds moving you there.

See even though I was so far north I was in the turkey leg and chic fil a section I know I need to pay my dues and would only move one grid space South next year... lol.. Now if someone wants to swap......

The launch area is North of this wonderfully splash and dash worthy lake that is South of the field....

":O)

Hotel Elegante was very nice. https://www.hotelelegante.com/  Large and clean rooms,,lots of space...near enough to the launch area...like 10 minutes away by a circuitous route.

No real changes there though they did drop some reservations...I don't know what the cause of that was. It was fixed.

Registration was most excellent with wildlife in abundance roaming the grounds..and no.. that's not the Pilots... Real deer and real bears... Very good food and free libations. Who could ask for more.

The registration meeting was quick, to the point and worth its own sitcom for the humor involved.

Morning and Glow briefs were nice and to the point also, well informed and even foods to keep us all quiet while it went off... mostly quiet.

Flying was interesting and varied.

Last comments before I close and show you a few photographs from the video cameras...

The VOLUNTEERS were AMAZING! I needed help because I came up by myself and stole my driver from my Son. The people who came out ( including a friend of a good friend drove down from Denver even!! ) were so energized and raring to go. We had crew who knew what they were doing and crew who it was all new to. All were awesome.

Closing... Would I drive my heavy trailer all the way up to Colorado Springs next year and back..

HELL YEAH!

Parking pass with great info on back....

Rally pamphlet...

Very cool and also crazy with info.


The registration "feeding of the masses" Nice. Chairs went quickly...Next year I'm bringing my own.

Yes..my mouth is always open... sigh.... Eric's quick finger on the shutter.

And again Eric catches me unaware at the brief... also my one and only beer for the night.... BLagh! I don't do beer.

One of the sponsors we flew..co owners of this nice brewery...  https://www.facebook.com/cerberusbrewingco

A nice visit after flying them and landing them in an alley behind a pawn shop.....

Great venue. We got there when they opened and when we left about an hour later it was packed.

Grilled cheese and brisket sammich... yum! Fries were excellent too.

Lastly, on Sunday we didn't get to fly due to the weather. We rushed off to get some breakfast forgetting that there were pancakes for everyone hosted by Cracker Barrel. We did return when we heard that... only to be coerced into hanging out with a very nice group of locals and near locals and their handy dandy mobile pizza ovens.

Didn't matter that they had almost packed everything up ..or that we were wanderers.. just that we were hungry... So they pulled out dough.. and ran it through a rolling machine.. slapped it on platters and there was a table of ingredients.. load that pizza dough.. hand it over to the over master pizza blaster and about 7 minutes later... one awesomely tasty pizza!!

Love these people!!!!

Scarfed this down quickly... wished I could savor it but I was wanted to visit a Nikon tent and look over their new p1000 camera with a x3000 zoom....

More about that NEXT week!

A few shots of flying...

All from the Kodak 360 camera unedited except for light..

Off and almost to the lake! Damn it!

Sidelined so shooting those that popped over the tree and got in....

A nice bump at altitude. Fabric to fabric so no problem at all.

Over the cars and into the hands of a great crew, who then taxied me to an open space...

...and laid me down. My volunteers first flight. He loved it!

Part of my crew for the weekend! Next time I will get pictures of you all!!!

Next weekend.. Photographs from the Colorado Springs Labor Day Lift Off and comments on the new Nikon p1000 x3000mm camera.

When things just go wrong... three strikes in ballooning

It was a down weekend for me but my son had a flight of two to fly on Saturday. We got out there in time and were the first to start inflating with an interesting low level East wind with an upper North to Northwest. Everyone was slow and he stood up first...only to pull the top as the balloon was dishing in and making it unstable. Unfortunately when pulling it down the fabric got caught in the pulley and it tore... Ending flying for us for the day.

But some decided to fly anyway. The cold inflation's on each were interesting and the hot inflation was novel at best. All were on the edge of control but all of the pilots pulled it off nicely.

I would not have flown due to the brisk inflation and the direction. But that's me. I like to fly low, chase rabbits and have a merry ole time dancing closer to the ground. I usually only go up high to get to a place I want to be to come back down and play again. So for me it would have been a meh flight.

So this week as quickly as possible the envelope has to go in and get repaired. Shouldn't be a problem with our outstanding repair facility, AERCO. Fingers crossed.

The few shots I took with either the Nikon D7100 or the Sony RX10V4 are below. Few as there were few that flew...

Rod seems to have his passengers sign the bottom of his basket. Pretty cool idea...

Putting some heat to it and it was  rocking back and forth but with a lot of weight on the sides she calmed down enough to load passengers and get up in the air.

He went right up there and cut North and fiddled around. I didn't see his landing but I'm sure it was fun for him.

Some balloons went North and tracked back South a bit. This was a long 600mm shot with some fast clouds behind and some virga showing up in between.

Rainbow Ryders took off to our South, grabbed an early West then walked North and landed where we were launching from.

Here are a few from my cell phone.

Packing up after the tear....booo...

Rainbow Ryders plops down with a massive amount of passengers... should have crashed their after flight party but our tail gate was very nice.

Overflight and poor quality shot of a formation flight with a straggler not in this picture.

Normally I do not take pictures of food but the fried mozz at Joes Italian restaurant was excellent...  It was a spur of the moment run into Rio Rancho to have a wonderful dinner.

I decided I needed a better keyboard with real keys and the side number pad so I went for this alienware that matches my aurora computer. Nice yellow breathing lights. Its a bear to write this blog on at this moment as the keys are farther apart and have more depth than my little logitech. They make a loud clicky sound as well. Going to take some getting used to. Its bigger and heavier too.

Lastly I mocked up my own dang Fiesta card! LOL. Why... because I can and it was fun to try.

I could have made it spot on but that was not the reason to do it... I wanted to have some fun and I did. I wonder how close I got the the real one......when they ever post it...  Its a tease!

Danged delete key is in a different place.. my fingers are flipping out.

Going to be a busy week. Air handlers going in and old cranky units going out. Its time for something more reliable and less expensive to run.

To close out this blog... most Pilots have a process on deciding to fly or not. Besides the weather. The three strikes rule is pretty good. Forgetting an item, something gets broken, something missing or connected wrong...anything that causes the process of the balloon standing up and flying to stop.. three strikes and your out.... If the weather is odd is a very good reason to sit it out.

This Saturday the winds were quick before sunrise and still quick after with little calmer bits in there... which we call sucker holes. There was large and speedy clouds to the West and more clouds with slices and virga to the North. All of those things could mean outflow winds or not... its a decision to make.

I like to err on the ground and not in the air... Much easier to get to the truck and sit on the tail gate when you are already on the ground.

Do you have a checklist for Go NoGo on your flights? Do you have one for daily life... If I could just get to that third in the morning I could stay home more...hahahaha....

Have a fun filled week and see you out next weekend!