As we all with children either race off to church or start early on the Easter chocolate binge.............
Christos Voskrese!
With older children now partially out of the house its a more sedate and achy move to find coffee and a chair... commiserate on aches and pains and drown them in coffee. My alteration of a normal Sunday has been to lay a blanket over my lap and let the dog pass out on it. She decided not to after twice jumping up and laying down. Not good enough today.
Granted that limited my coffee intake in a serious way. Ah well....
The week was nuts. The last few days with Emily in the house were a lot of fun but the silence after was sad. But it was fun while it lasted and she will be here today for an in-house Easter egg hunt ( filled with healthy snacks ) and then Easter bread and ham, Polish / Czech style.
Saturday we did get to fly but it was close.....
We had gotten set up near Kurt and beside Ted and started to inflate since there was no wind what so ever only to see Kurt have to launch quickly and with some horizontal movement into the air. The gusting came up and we were all dishing in. Me, standing, had to think about this. East at speed was a no go... but was there something above us that would take us West.... We watched Kurt and he did start West when he was about 200 ft up... So we launched and we launched like a rocket.
Reasons to do this were to clear quickly the other balloons around us and to not get any more East push than we had to. We pushed a lot of hot air and sprang into the air and upward around 700 fpm. A good hold on the turning vent spun us 360 plus and we stopped the ascent at about 200 feet above ( it was real quick ) and moved West North West nicely.
So this was an impromptu flight review so I decided I wanted to cruise at altitude toward the West but with some South so I could get to a nearby arroyo ( a big one ) and drop into it to land and take off.
Most of that worked exactly as it should have. When we got to the dog leg of the arroyo ( it goes from West to East then turns a 90 degree right or South then runs till it does another 90 degree turn left, East again ) we got the wind coming down that arroyo in our faces at about 100 feet up and that caused a backing up so I popped up and got back to the right track to the last 90 degree. Dropping into that and having the breeze loop us into a smooth left turn a was excellent. We dropped in and skimmed the ground and touched, skipped, touched, missed a huge bolder by the wiggle of the basket, then came to rest. ( picture above of said boulder )
We waited till Ted got close and popped back up to his level. Still a bit far away but good enough to take pictures. Wow.. Camera wouldn't focus. Nice. Since we were done with the review by then Eric took the controls to have some fun tracking Ted while I fiddled with the camera. Stupid A/C - M switch had gotten bumped. Easy fix and I could take more pictures. Sadly. At that time the winds pretty much died out leaving us becalmed ( 1.5 mph ) over a neighborhood with little for landing places but the roads.
Eric nicely dropped us onto a road we thought we could be taxied to a cul de sac but that was not happening after we were on the ground. So I jumped out for Nick to have a bit of a flight while Eric took Highperactive up and over some power lines to get closer to the park Ted had landed in nearby.
He did and we taxied him over a fence and we laid out the balloon next to Teds and had a nice grass pack away. Teds great team helped us pack up too. Very nice of them.
Back to the field and a lot of chatting later... we made it home just before 12pm.
I tested a Hot Air App for the Ipad for tracking your flight and flight data. It worked wonderfully and I now have that to use during my flights. It shows the map of the area and all the zones to avoid ( thank you Fiesta ). It also tracks all your movements, speeds, weather and such.
The high point of the week other than Saturdays flying was our acceptance into the 2017 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Morghan got his in the morning and I got mine a while after but couldn't see it because I was working. FAN TAS TIC! Its going to be very interesting.
So that was it. Tomorrow a new week of things I have no clue about....
Here are some pictures from this weekend... Some from me and some from Ted and one from Kurt. Ted had a better angle on me than I did on him ( sun wise so.... )
Sunrises...
Our distant Southern Cousins.. Rainbow Ryders and World Balloons Passenger companies and also the Riestra balloon flying.
More friends flying with some Top Gun Competitors mixed in to our North.
Down in the valley... the valley so low... OK.. Arroyo. Where we were moments before.
A crop of Ted making hand gestures out of his basket... was he doing shadow puppets? Indicating his movement? Just had to stick something out there....
And here are some Ted took that were awesome ..very awesome.. Thanks again Ted!
Tracking Ted as we slowly pushed South West in search of a landing area.
Up and over Patturns Highperactive and her cool crown. We are much higher than this picture looks.
On the ground after. When did they have time to cut up so much while I was working to put things away.. I don't know. hahahaha.
In the arroyo. This is the last part of the West East running section. I believe this was taken by Kurt as he was in front of us. Not Ted. A beautiful picture.
Over the side of Teds basket and behind us as we stand in the arroyo sure in the knowledge that IF there was a flood of water we could be away long before it got to us... hahahaha... yeah.. water.. flood.. sure.
I love that my friends were in the air and having as much fun as I was. Now I need to win that lottery so that I can buy them all high megapixal DSLRs. These are amazing shots from CELL PHONE CAMERAS! Yeah! They ( Ted, Eric, Kurt ) take amazing pictures. But you cant blow them up. Hense the need for DSLRs. LOL.. or this thing below... but I would have to win a big lottery because they cost 16,000 dollars!!!
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/what-the-production-light-l16-52-megapixel-camera-with-16-built-in-lenses-looks-like
16 lenses and 52 megpixels. WOW BABY. also focal plane editing on the fly or on post production. Someday......
So that was this week and weekend... many thing going... Oh yeah forgot.... here... look at these things...
Clips from the Kodak 360.
Dropping gently into the arroyo. Missing the boulders.
Looking up before relaunching into the air...
Eric and Nick getting taxied into the park...
Kurt found this window sticker being sold with Patturns Highperactive right there plain as day. Thank you Kurt!!!!
My bag of "Get Outta My Airspace" Pins that traveled to the East coast with Ted and Eric for a safety seminar. Sold some too! They are my "for sale" pins so I can keep having pins made. 5 dollars each for a 1.5 inch cool one of a kind pin.
The Hot Air app on my iPad and my flight track... wiggle wiggle wiggle.
A good week all in all.....
Happy Easter... Enjoy the day and upcoming week!
