We are an emergency vehicle! We recover errant balloons! We needs some lights and a siren though.
Straight to it.
Last weeks shots that I hadn't got to till now below. I still have not done them all.... Lots n lots!
I shot for Single envelopes in the air, baskets as close as possible and active as possible and larger than life shots..
So larger than life... with people.
Larger than life with two envelopes raising at one time.
Larger and in your face.
Hello to you trying to weave out from in between all those balloons.
Up is the best way to avoid contact.
Now we are all ready to lift off.
No zebras on the field and you see what happens! Pandemonium!
Not really but it was fun to see the leaping into the air here and there without any rhyme or reason. No problem for these seasoned Pilots. Heh! We do very good formation flying.
So that was a fun week and I really do have to spend some time getting the remaining sets done.. then uploaded to my web site at Invisibleblack.zenfolio.com ... Ive been busy so no time yet.
Soooooo... up to date easily from last weekend and the weekend before.. busy busy.... Now for this weekend.
This Sunday was designated.. get Highperactive out of her dry bag and in the air.. shake the dust off her and see the sky..
I was watching the weather and we were first supposed to have high winds and then snow... and then it all went away.... so we headed out and parked next to Dean and his hopper. Didnt know it but they were going to fly. Cool!.. Some shots of that...
A hopper. One man balloon rig. Neat! Needs to be a barco lounger.
An experimental basket.. no really... but it had an envelope in it this time. They had another little single seat hopper to the right.
Dean gets some cool snake moves to his flame. So that was fun.... once he got up and away we pulled out the basket and Highperactive.... wow does that envelope feel heavy after the Soarcoat 90.
Since it was cloudy I didn't take my camera on the flight but I did have the Kodak 360 running.
It caught some fun.
Rory releases us and we head East.. No.. not East!!!.. Hit the burner some extra second and up we go at 800 fpm. Boom! All the Southwest I wanted!
Roll out at about 6000 feet and head Southwest. Good track but flying the racer after the 90 Soarcoat is a bit difficult. Getting the right burn set to keep somewhat level flight was 20 minutes of ...ooops!! oops... oops... but then it got cool.
We flew over Paradise and the school and a black Aerostar right in front of us decided to drop out and went almost to ground level and we were still moving forward when he decided he wanted to come back up very quickly.
Seeing that, I could do one of two things. Hit my burners and go up about 200 feet to get away from him and also screw my flight plan to heck or descend as he ascended and slide past him.... which we did. I dropped about 200 feet and he came up next to us instead of under us. This is because the wind below was moving somewhat slower and he was coming through a push Southwest so he missed us easily.. If I had stayed where I was he would have been too close. He knew we were above him. The racer can move faster than he could so we were good to go up if necessary. Of all the space up there...hahaha
Crossing Unser and Paseo. Plan was to get across to the spot we were at and drop into the winds going Eastish. It worked very nicely making a quick and direct left turn in the sky.
Shadow chasing. Down to about five feet at 5mph. Nice little sign in the way so I held it at 4ish so it was easy for Rory get grab on.
Rory the human wall grabbed and stopped us in the air using english or flex and stance control. Awesome!
Laid down in the nice "fine dust"! Yay! LOL. The envelope is re-coated in find dust again. Going to have to find some grass to roll her around in to get it all off.
Patturns Highperactive is a wonderfully reactive Lindstrand racer envelope. She moved and controls so very quickly. Since I requested Diamond Weave fabric completely she is also heavy. So packing her away will wear you out... for the moment. Really just need to take it slowly. I think this envelope is going to be still flying in 13 years or more. She is 7 1/2 years old now and there is no stopping her when she is in the air. Now that we have the Kennedy 90 she is only getting half time as I am switching them out each flight.... I like that.. and its fun! Changing the codes in the instruments is a bit of a pain though.
Packed up and put away we cruised back to Einstein bagels for some snacks. Had to park between two emergency vehicles and play possum while we went in to get foods. Back to the field and good conversations with everybody!! Nothing like standing in a dirt field in the middle of almost nowhere with 30 or 40 of your friends and sipping sodas or mimosas and nibbling on snacks. Its a good life!
Ive also this week been loading software on a computer. Its always a pain in the butt as you never remember what you had on the old computer and what you really use.. and then before I could side by side verify microsoft decides to update my computer and clear all my menus and such! Lovely. Thank goodness I had just taken pictures of my start menus.. so I could recreate them on the old as well as the new.
Saying all that, I screwed up and loaded all the programs to the small SSD and not the 2tb drive.. oops.. damn!.... Not doing that again.. so getting a larger ssd to mirror and then replace the drive in there. Once that is done I can swap out computers and carry on.
Now if I could only remember the name of the mirroring software.... hmmmmmm......
Age.. memory... no work well together.
Next is Christmas! Merry Christmas.... Well I will write one more blog before that... and I wont be showing you pictures of the glow next Sunday evening.. you will have to wait for those....
The Sony camera is still rocking it with its versatility. That was a worthy buy.
So we enter a new week.. and at work it will be quiet as we are under a moratorium. No routine maintenance until after the holidays. I will be creating paperwork and processing more paperwork. Its not bad.. just a lot of eye strain.
Hope your weekend rocked as well as mine did and if it didnt.. maybe you need to come out and crew and perhaps fly with us! Its never a dull moment.... ever!
