It all started with bubbles...
Now we have storms coming into the area and rain starting to fall.. we had a little storm earlier and it was swiftly gone so we figured.. yep... New Mexico rainstorm.. five minutes... but the other side to New Mexico rainstorms is the torrential rains and hail and thunder and lightning and serious flooded arroyos and that's just another danger.
Looking t the radar feed its a big long storm. Hang on to your horses. Who ever washed their cars yesterday... thanks!
Its coming off my roof like a waterfall. Hope my tiles are fine and I have no leaks.
Well while that is going on outside... lets go back to yesterdays balloon flight.
The system came out of its annual inspection nicely. Thank you AERCO..out local repair and design station.
Hooked everything up and set the temp sensor in the top. The plastic around the sensor has split and that's not a fun thing. I will have to get in there again and tape it up. I plan on having AERCO put a nice bit of velcro up there to lock the sensor head right against the fabric like it should. Plus fix the little tear I caused after flying.
My bad. I have to stop landing near the construction... every time I do I get some damage. This time it was from a huge chunk of volcanic rock. Sigh. First tear.
The flight was fun and challenging. As the winds were faster than normal and the only Westerly was about 500 feet up and thin.. about 40 feet.. I had to launch and get into it quick and stay there. I bobbled it a bit at first but was able to stick the envelope in it and ride it south. It was a fast run and we reached 11.1 mph at the top. The landing was at 10.3 mph and smooth as glass. I was able to drop down and ground track at 10 feet ( due to the trees in the way ) and then drop out at the end. With such fast winds we were dragged towards some large rock piles and when deflating it got a snag.
Great flight.
Clips from the video cams. I didn't have time to take pics...
I hooked up two kodak 360 4k cams. They failed after 20 minutes of flight. Seriously bad camera build by kodak.
That surreal spiral is always so cool to look at.
Up and out. Rotating counter clock wise or widdershins as we go. Stepped off the Earth again and hid my trail... woo hoo... Yeah.. crazy talk. Also avoided banging into the balloon next to me.
Over the arroyo I would normally drop down into and play about but the wind was the controller that day and I had to keep it where she was to get all the West I wanted. I could have done something different but this is what I did. It was 80 degrees also, which make is very hot for the top of the balloon. 204 was the max temp.
Tail numbers on an aircraft with no tail.
My flight. All that red is staying in that 40 foot of Southwest air. I calculated for that blue hook at the end and it came out SA-WEET!
It was a good flight.... very good flight...
My nice clean front yard. I have a fantastic gardener. Yes.. for two reasons.. I hate yard work and my back wont let me bend down constantly. If I even tried to do this I would be laid up for three days after. This is what happens when you abuse your back when you are a kid.
UTE fire.. its getting rained on right now so hopefully that will knock it down and or put it right out.
I hate to see the forests on fire and they loss of houses or animals really sucks. We also have a balloon rally to the West of that area in two weeks and I would rather not have it cancelled due to the fire or possibly creating a fire. Fingers crossed.
So we are sitting here waiting to see what happens. Right now its on and we will be up for three days of ballooning at 8000 feet in the beautiful Angle Fire valley. 15, 16, 17 of June. You should come out.. It will be awesome!!
Its a photographers dream as well.
More info to follow on it... but you can look it up on the nets...
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