But some decided to fly anyway. The cold inflation's on each were interesting and the hot inflation was novel at best. All were on the edge of control but all of the pilots pulled it off nicely.
I would not have flown due to the brisk inflation and the direction. But that's me. I like to fly low, chase rabbits and have a merry ole time dancing closer to the ground. I usually only go up high to get to a place I want to be to come back down and play again. So for me it would have been a meh flight.
So this week as quickly as possible the envelope has to go in and get repaired. Shouldn't be a problem with our outstanding repair facility, AERCO. Fingers crossed.
The few shots I took with either the Nikon D7100 or the Sony RX10V4 are below. Few as there were few that flew...
Rod seems to have his passengers sign the bottom of his basket. Pretty cool idea...
Putting some heat to it and it was rocking back and forth but with a lot of weight on the sides she calmed down enough to load passengers and get up in the air.
He went right up there and cut North and fiddled around. I didn't see his landing but I'm sure it was fun for him.
Some balloons went North and tracked back South a bit. This was a long 600mm shot with some fast clouds behind and some virga showing up in between.
Rainbow Ryders took off to our South, grabbed an early West then walked North and landed where we were launching from.
Here are a few from my cell phone.
Packing up after the tear....booo...
Rainbow Ryders plops down with a massive amount of passengers... should have crashed their after flight party but our tail gate was very nice.
Overflight and poor quality shot of a formation flight with a straggler not in this picture.
Normally I do not take pictures of food but the fried mozz at Joes Italian restaurant was excellent... It was a spur of the moment run into Rio Rancho to have a wonderful dinner.
I decided I needed a better keyboard with real keys and the side number pad so I went for this alienware that matches my aurora computer. Nice yellow breathing lights. Its a bear to write this blog on at this moment as the keys are farther apart and have more depth than my little logitech. They make a loud clicky sound as well. Going to take some getting used to. Its bigger and heavier too.
Lastly I mocked up my own dang Fiesta card! LOL. Why... because I can and it was fun to try.
I could have made it spot on but that was not the reason to do it... I wanted to have some fun and I did. I wonder how close I got the the real one......when they ever post it... Its a tease!
Danged delete key is in a different place.. my fingers are flipping out.
Going to be a busy week. Air handlers going in and old cranky units going out. Its time for something more reliable and less expensive to run.
To close out this blog... most Pilots have a process on deciding to fly or not. Besides the weather. The three strikes rule is pretty good. Forgetting an item, something gets broken, something missing or connected wrong...anything that causes the process of the balloon standing up and flying to stop.. three strikes and your out.... If the weather is odd is a very good reason to sit it out.
This Saturday the winds were quick before sunrise and still quick after with little calmer bits in there... which we call sucker holes. There was large and speedy clouds to the West and more clouds with slices and virga to the North. All of those things could mean outflow winds or not... its a decision to make.
I like to err on the ground and not in the air... Much easier to get to the truck and sit on the tail gate when you are already on the ground.
Do you have a checklist for Go NoGo on your flights? Do you have one for daily life... If I could just get to that third in the morning I could stay home more...hahahaha....
Have a fun filled week and see you out next weekend!
