Same with honey at the Mexican restaurant.. honey.. just everywhere.
Sunday was a fun flight with old friends and taking pictures then chasing a new envelope through the skies.
Lets go back to front here because there is a lot to say about the new envelope and little to say about oil.
The owners of Enchanted Diamonds needed a new envelope that could carry more people as Enchanted Diamonds is a 77,000 cubic foot balloon and Burning Desire is a 90,000.
Burning Desire.... Kurt, Jane and JP... all three awesome and wonderful friends had to go from scratch on this. They got to choose the colors ( Got this wrong. The colors were part of the package)... got to choose the size ( part of package too ) and lastly ( MOST IMPORTANTLY ) had to figure out a name.
Three very hard things to do really.
I think Kurt ( sorry Im spilling the beans here.. you can hit me later ) spend a massive amount of time coloring in envelope blanks by hand. When designing an envelope you have to take into consideration every other balloon out there. So many duplicate balloons. You really would think that there couldn't be THAT many balloons that a duplicate design could pop up right... happens all the time. Kurt busted a good one in the end.
Three colors. Turquoise, Burgundy, Golden Yellow. FOUR ( corrected again. This is what happens when I try to write too late in the night ) right directed arrows of each color with the other colors complimenting each section. Impressive. Then they added the zia on the crown to top it off.
It is a 90,000 Adams with dual turning vents and a parachute crown. Enchanted Diamonds was a 77,000 with a para-vent and no turning vents.
This balloon will allow them to carry more passengers and fuel cooler and longer.
I believe it was Jane who came up with the name after so many went by the wayside. It fits perfectly.
( Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire hit me after )
Since this was her second flight a bunch of items came up that need correcting but that will be taken care of quickly and her second flight will be next weekend.
I will bring out only the cameras and take as many shots possible to get some really good ones. Its pretty easy since the balloon design is amazing.
My son had my Kennedy / Lindstrand system out and prepped so I could pretty much jump in and go.
With the squirrelly winds about we had to rotate everything 180 degrees as the ground winds shifted and inflate that way. Inflated... passengers loaded and off we went.
The forecast was for 8 mph going East. We took off heading Southwest then a little higher we had straight West. Chasing Burning Desire up and over the nearby hills. We had rabbits running everywhere.. we had wasps come up to 200 feet to bug us when we were becalmed... popping up another 300 feet lost them and we were back off to the West.
We came over the hill and the winds picked up noticeably so I decided that the next nice road was a landing spot for me. We came in low.. tagged a few bushes and my son, Ross and Joshua caught us and brought us to the main road with Rory being the anchor. I had my passengers get out and the crew taxied me over so we could lay the envelop out safely on the cross road.
Packed up and put away we went back to the launch site and had bagels and soda, water and mimosas... we talked about how good our flights were and the odd things we got into and a lot of other things.
Nothing like spending your morning in the middle of a field somewhat in the middle of nowhere ( kinda ) yacking and munching.
Here are some of the clips from the video cameras and then from the Nikon D7100...
JP flying after an interesting hand off from Kurt. Road landing just prior to this.
JP wanting to check the equator hits the ground hard enough to bring the envelope down to the basket. Loads of fun... and the after....
Is the penduluming that happens and it was a lot of swing around that hot ball of air above.
Myself going hot. You can see the yellow dot of flame in my sunglasses. Clips from the Kodak 360 4k cam.
Rory and Ross on the throat keeping the wires out of the flames.
Up and in the air cruising along... just venting at the top.
D7100
JP is excited and ready to go.
Eric and his gang look on....
Her balloon... and she is holding the crown line. She did a great job of letting it come up smoothly. Normally the heavier you are the easier it is.
JP puts some heat on. Preflight test of tanks, burners, peizos.
Burning Desire sees light for the second time. Glorious colors assault your eyes. Bright and shiny fabric.
Kurt's tattooed leg is all you can see as he goes in search of his red line and turning vent lines. Or a quick nap...whichever.
Boldness above.
Kurt lights it up.
You cannot ask for a nicer canopy above your head while at 500 feet. Lovely!
Burning Desires one of three sides.... She slid over the hills so well.
And that was my week.. mostly one day.
The oil thing is just too boring now... It is always novel replacing oil in a huge radar dish. Not going to talk about how many steps up and down it is to get into the dome. UGH!
We also had a great dinner during the week which turned into a honey everywhere you could think fest... yeesh! This was while an engagement party was going on beside us and we figured that most of the women there were trying to see how short a skirt they could wear without being arrested for having things hang out. It was so very very silly. Ill pass thanks.
This next week... Work and some fun there if you think paperwork can be fun.. which it can.... Cleaning the basket is a bit of fun too. Tanks out, Burners out, poles out, floor pad out. Wash all the dust off and soak the wicker one more time... Wash the floor mat,, wipe down everything, Do a full condition to the bolster leather and upright covers with some Wheeler's leather conditioner...smells like heaven... dry.. put it back together and we are ready to go for Fiesta!
Some work about the house... Some fish to capture and relocate... some cables to run..but there is a video of the new balloons flight Im about to start processing... So..
Happy new week to you all.... Hope you have as much fun as I do getting to the next weekend. Drive safe.. smile a lot... Make people wonder... Use your turn signals.
