But first!
Aviation weather....
Here is how easy it is to locate the exact ( hopefully ) weather report for the specific launch sites in the Albuquerque area! With pictures!!! Yaaaaa!!!
Search for NWS Albuquerque...
You will get to this page.
Scroll down....
Down at the bottom, look for the Aviation Forecast green icon with the plane on it.
Click on it!
That gets you this page... Look down towards the bottom and find Balloon Forecasts..
Click on it!
This page pops up.... WOW.. so cool! Select the launch site you feel the need to fly from.
CLICK ON IT!!!
BOOM! You get the tabular forecast for that specific area! Way cool!
Enter the date and time in the 48 Hour Forecast Period and you should see your forecast.
Within a 48 hour window you can get the weather for the area. Its been pretty good at being close to right the last weekend.... But you know unless you go out to the launch area you can never know for sure how the winds will be. Hope this helps you decide on flying or not.
Brought to you by the NWS in Albuquerque.
Nice huh! Blast Valve and some other weather sites give you a generic forecast based around the airport... which is pretty bad for specifics.
So that was fun.. I had meant to do that last week but got sidetracked.
Onward!!!
My flight this weekend....
Let me preface this by saying that my Lindstrand Racer, Patturns Highperactive is a heavy bugger for being a 69,000 balloon. Or it feels that way. With the baffle in the middle she is FUN to squeeze after landing... So I usually like to have five strong people to help pack it away.
When I got out to the field this Saturday it was covered with balloons and people but I had myself, Mary, Mo, Rory and Hannah... that's it. I resigned myself to sitting on the ground because just us packing it up would be a lot of hard work.
After watching everyone else go floating off into the air we decided the least we could do it pull her out of the dry bag where she was sitting after I sewed the temp sensor in place and get her into the regular bag...
This meant we had to drop the basket off the trailer first... The basket with burners, tanks, fuel and accessories weighs in around...449 lbs. I can get it off and rotate it around on a corner and get her positioned. That's all just maneuvering. The Envelope weighs 232 lbs and cannot be lifted by me alone. Its a bit unwieldy for two people but can be done.
Dropped the basket out and then drove the trailer out so that the envelope could be pulled out of the back of the trailer to meet up with where the basket was.... Off a bit but it worked.. then we were pretty much saying.. its out.. and its still nice.. lets get it stood up and check the temps... which we did but then it was like.. well its up so ... heck lets go fly.. and we did that too.
The FAA were out visiting, which is fine. Ramp checks are not unusual and this close to Fiesta its something to do. I said my hello's and go on with my stuff... and we took off....
Easily breaking contact with the earth again and as usual... rotating counter clockwise to hide our tracks we zipped up to 700 feet above the ground and headed Southwest. A slight curve.... Entered Double Eagle airport airspace so gave them a call on the radio... second time he caught my call and reported back that he was busy and gave me the altimeter and clicked off.. no problem there...
We bobbled along at 700 to 750 feet up looking for a place to land until the wind stopped. I mean stopped. We were over an arroyo. Going up 200 feet and down 300 feet got us nothing. We were becalmed. So... since the arroyo was below I dropped out and stopped the balloon about 10 feet up from the edge of the arroyo and we had a slight drift to the North. Nice because there was a bridge there and if I could get us close to a road we could drag her to a clear space and lay her down.
As we came towards the bridge railing I noticed that only half of the bridge was being use for traffic so I popped over the rail and sat down on a nice dry bit of clear bridge. Sweet. Crew were there about four minutes after and we dragged the basket back to the East a bit and laid her down sweetly.
Cant beat that at all. Packed up and back to the field for a bit of a tailgate and visit... a good flying day.
Here are some pictures for the Nikon 7100 with 10.5 fisheye lens, my cell phone and also some clips from the Kodak 360 video cam.
Cell phone...
Kodak 360 vid cam...
The bridge sit.
Laying down on the job.
Holding the crown open.
Making sure we dont roll the envelope over to the roadway. It was completely safe.
Packing up was a job but we snaked it over itself and that made it easy to do. ( cell phone )
Yay Bridge!
I wished we had a pic of us standing up on the bridge but I forgot to try and get that done. Oh well.
This upcoming week.... Contact Aerco on my fuel tanks.... Calling ya all tomorrow... fair warning LOL.
Try and get more old equipment to disposal... prepare for incoming equipment.
Prepare for new Air Handlers to arrive and be installed... woo boy...
I forget!
Have a fun week your own self...
Oh.. there is a new Tim Powers book out.. Must go get that.... It has a very weird premise....
