Thanksgiving ballooning and the post family deflation

When my Granddaughter is home and not here its quiet and non-energized in the house. This is a BAD thing! When she is here...she wants to sit with you and wants to play hide and seek and chase her and she loves those silly videos where people play with slime and other antics and paw patrol and all the other strange stuff. She only has to say.. Papa can we watch eggs, and I have this little girl sittin on my lap, legs crossed at the ankle and hands folded watching the television while this stuff goes on. Its mind numbing but worth it to spend time with her. She likes someone to watch with her and she will be 21 before we blink. I am storing memories everywhere I can.

Now she is home, napping, preparing to play with her toys and chase the dogs around.. or vice versa.

The house is .. BORING!!!!!

Now we have to wait for a few months before we can go out to California and visit. We will miss Christmas with her.. but we had a mini Christmas just for her after Thanksgiving and her birthday also but it cant be helped. Luckily technology allows us to see her every day or visit with her via video chat.

Still not as good as the real hugs.

Oh well...

Also during that time we went out to see a balloon return to its owner and him and his son fly it again after a long time away. Balloons name is I Dont Know... which leads to all sorts of Abbott and Costello comments.

Its a nicely maintained Aerostar with a center pull parachute top and scoop. It has a lay down 20 and a stand up 15 gallon propane tanks. Makes for some interesting standing positions. She looked to fly very nicely and I had a 360 video camera on her for the flight.

Below you will see some clips from the cam in 360 mode. I have not stripped it to pano or split pano yet. I will be doing that right after I finish this blog post.

Check these out.

Checking the 360 down position prior to launch. It was very cold.

Off they go. Almost missed it as I was shooting other balloons while waiting. Boom.. they were airborne.

Mo checking something out .. probably the crown and the red lines.

Into a local arroyo followed closely by the dead cat or 8Down1ToGo...and more as it was a follow the leader kind of day.

Father Son meet up before switching out. The only way to be in an arroyo..

Up and over Unser heading East with the air flow down the arroyo. Just above it was moving at about 8 mph South and higher it was going West from East.

Splitting the lanes at 50 feet and ascending.

Higher still to get that Southerly wind.

Coming low again over Unser, South of Paradise and a wave off of a landing.

Now its someone elses turn to fly and ground track. Hard thing to do in a HAB... stay level with the ground just above it and not hit it.

Checking for where the hand is going when reaching up to burn. Smart!

Switching again for a quick landing over big rock piles.. no mistakes would be good here.

But a text book landing and a nice re-inflation to stand up after.... taxi to the right and call it a day.

Down and resting. Envelope smells good, basket is in good shape.. impressive.

That was Thanksgiving morning.

There was supposed to be a flight Friday afternoon but the winds were iffy so it was called off though some did fly and did have fun doing it. I dont much care for the iffy nature of afternoon flights. But you could say mornings are as bad.

Here are a few standard shots of the day...

Let me state here that the day was bleak. no light and washed out color. I had to adjust these to see anything.

Lovely fan design viewed from the crown.

Getting it hot and ready to launch. Zone 5 burners.

 And its follow me follow you. Everyone came down in the arroyo then turned East. One guy came from elsewhere and dropped right in front of the others....

Lining up for whatever fun could be had.

Follow how my hand is... go this way then go that way... Ha ha ha. Look closely at the picture.

Sandias in the background look like the Smokies.

Not too hard of a pack up though she didn't want to go back in her bag after.

A fun day.

Saturday Mo flew but I didn't go out as I was going to be going out Sunday to shoot another balloon only for that to fall apart due to high winds.. so it was called off at the field and I got to go home without any shots.

Some outtake shots.....

An edit for Thanksgiving of the morning sky. Sweet colors and clouds but too much junk in the air to get a clean shot.

Catz Eyez.

A colorful view on a dark morning.

Trading out passengers is good. Blocking the sidewalk..... who cares.. no one was walking there but us.. too darn cold.

Keep that Cat away from the volcano!!! Or at least Mike. Bird beauty mark.

The raven that came flying past.. he was farther off and I had to track and shoot like mad. I had the focus set wrong.

Diamond Weave fabric is strong. Look at that pattern!!!

I am still gathering up ballooning etiquette comments for the blog when I have lots of them. I have received many so far and they will all be posted anonymously when I do... so think about it.

Time to close this up and get ready for tomorrow.

Red Rock Balloon Rally is this Friday the 30th of November and then Sat the 1st and Sun the 2nd of December in Gallup!!! Its going to be interesting!!!

Ballooning etiquette and the rules.

Down weekend for me. I was hoping to go out and shoot some of the flights on Sunday but the winds were gusting at about 60 or 70 feet and that makes you pause. Sitting on the ground and watching a ride balloon descend into it and sweep South quickly just showed us that it was there...and that I didn't want to be there...they landed around 10 mph.. kinda fast.

It was completely flyable if you wanted to play with that wind level. Since we live in New Mexico and there will always be next weekend or the afternoon.. so everyone in the area sat on the ground or went to breakfast.

What rules do we have.. written and unwritten?

My favorites are.

Get to the launch field early or don't block people who have picked a launch spot already.

Do not ever bump fabric to fabric unless the Pilot in the other balloon know you are going to or its impossible to not bump..especially if you are at low levels.

There are more.. do you have one or two.. or more?

Since it was a quiet no fly weekend for me... I took a few shots with my phone cam to fill the void.


An old instrument panel in a Balloon Works balloon triangle basket. A very pretty basket too.

Three corners.. three tanks...one central burner.

Even has a glove compartment...

Amazing wicker work on this.

Me personally... cant deal with the low sides.. freaks me out a lot.

My Sons balloon bottom has Thunder and Colt tanks and burners. The fuel lines go into the tank vertically. His basket is a Lindstrand and its very nice. a little wider than mine but that few extra inches count for passenger comfort. my basket.. with three people... well you gotta love the people you are with.

His burners are classy and smooth. Nice blue whisper toggles with above squeezer mains. He even has an adjustable burner frame so if you are a little shorter you can simply adjust it on the fly down.

The stinker went off and flew this afternoon.... ohhhh.... yeah... because he could!



There is a plan to fly Thanksgiving morning. Friends bought their old balloon back... so they are flying it for the first time in a long while. I am going out with the cameras to record the event.. maybe try and sneak a video camera on it too...

Then the day after Thanksgiving they are going to do the annual after turkey day afternoon flight... I will go out but I dont care for afternoon flights... They launch is always brisk and its a dice roll for the landing... Meh.. I'm a fair weather flyer ... I wanna have fun.. not stress the flight. I can if I have to... I choose not to... Again.. Its New Mexico.. there is always next weekend!

It looks like the next time I will fly is at the Gallup Red Rock Rally on the 30th of November and December 1st and 2nd. High hopes for good weather. Its an awesome and super fun rally.

Other than those exciting balloon things I have been moving picture files. I was into the last 500 gig of an 8 TB drive so I had to make room. I pulled two old 4 TB drives out and wiped them then moved all my photographs from 2000 to 2014 to those drives ( one primary & one backup ). Took ages but its done now. Now I have almost 4 TB back open for future shots.

I've also been hunting more music down. There are a lot of remasters for Jethro Tull and Tangerine Dream and a bunch of other favorite artists...

Then on Youtube there are some songs I've found I want but hunting those down is harder. So much fun...

Now hunting a good price for an Xbox one X. Not to be mistaken by its slower and more dumbed down Xbox one S cousin. Still good but less powerful processor and no 4K. if that means things to you.

What else to do... I have a scratch in my clean photo ball thingy. How that happened I dont know. I also burned my finger again with the sun passing through it. Sheesh!

I dont think it will be noticeable but if it is I can get another for around 20 bucks on Amazon. The scratch not the burn.

I had a nice conversion about using a ball in photographs this morning. It was in my pocket surprisingly.. My brain ran like this. Using a ball to enhance a shot is good as long as its not the ball as the center of attention. If it causes an effect that is the attention I am all for it. Does that make sense?

Okay.. I have to do lots of research and finding of things that do not want to be found.. plus.. some type of food item for dinner.


Enjoy! Happy Thanksgiving all in the States... All those not in the States.. make a Thanksgiving up for yourself! We dont care if you enjoy any American holiday... All the more fun!!!!!

3x the ballooning photo fun... and being in Auto/Program

First off.. Its Veterans day. My Dad and many of my uncles were in the service of the United States..Almost every branch. They are and were amazing men who were doing their duty. They all were awesome to know. To all who have put the uniform on and followed the rules and regulations did what was asked.. I salute you!     Dad, you are the rock.

I can look back with nostalgia... Now that I am not 30/60 feet deep underground in a bunker with no windows and the possibility that at any moment the blast doors might be sealed for who knew how long..... or at that forward listening post where we had to devise our own escape route out if that became necessary after we thermite bombed the computer racks. Loads of fun!

Its a much more different stress now...

Enough of that...

Last weeks photographic explosion was done on Friday. I finished going through all the shots and cleaned em up and posted them to facebook. I will share some of the last with you all in a moment.

But for now let me put out what I did this weekend.

Saturday was a total bust for the AAAA. Overcast skies and a funny wind and a relocation from a relocation put almost everyone off. Some decided to head out to the West side to try and fly while others of us thought it the perfect moment to go get breakfast. Breakfast was good but the flying on the West side was good too. Choices.

Since I had planned to fly Sunday the only thing I was bummed about was no pictures. I had planned to catch every possible balloon in a specific frame to use in an idea I had.. but.. low clouds.. bad light.. no flights .. breakfast. Sorry.. no pictures.

Today, Sunday was very nice. Couple of things going on.. 1. Ross had a new to him balloon he just bought and wanted to fly.. sweet... 2. Another soon to be Pilot was looking at a used balloon to buy... he bought it.. 3. I wanted to fly the racer as she had not gotten much air time during Fiesta.... I also wanted to get pictures of Ross in the air....

yeah...... I forgot....

It takes the Lindstrand racer next to nothing to cold inflate and be ready to hot inflate and fly... An Aerostar.. especially new to them is a bit longer in prepping to fly... Like just putting the butterfly clips in the top takes ages.... so.,.. we ended up just going hot and flying off and landing farther away and waiting a bit... that didn't work.

During my inflation I had what looked to be a back blast of flame that engulfed my head... impressive.. nothing burned.. it was too quick... boom there.. boom gone... but it was very novel to swivel my head left to right and see the flames all around... I have it on video as a 360 cam was just in front of my face.. wooo boy... Look

That is the camera mount right in the center and my face was right behind it.

This was the camera on the side and you can see how far out that way it went. The camera had a fog over right after from the temp change..

One slip of the finger.

But we got stood up nicely.. very nicely really... and off we went.. putting a fast counter clock wise spin in for good measure. No one could track us after that Mr. Powers!

We lofted up and landed on the edge of a road a bit away... then nudged over to the road so I could readjust my radios, then up out and off to see where we could get to. That was Just North of Northern in Rio Rancho.

No rabbits were hurt on landing. There were some big cats about though.. but we safely missed those too and landed with a slight skip and almost deflated envelope.. but no.. I was able to recover...

A very fun day.. Clips from the cameras below. I set one 360 camera just to point out for the heck of it. It can capture everything above and everything below... its a neat view.

Parked on the side of the road.

Back up and heading over the arroyo below.. it was a wither thou goest kind of day.

Tracked on this field and was able to get to the direct center where we could have dropped in and hit it perfectly but wanted to conserve fuel for flying farther. The chase crew were awesome and right below us and a little ahead.

Crossing over Northern we spied a nice bit dirt area that had been graded... not smooth but nice.. we found out that the big cat tired had made a bunch of speed bumps we would have to land across and also there were wooden stakes all over the field.

Dropping in and ground tracking about 4 feet up to find a clear spot with no stakes and not hit a berm of dirt...  and not run into the cats....

Set the basket down right next to two stakes and way away from any in front of us. Really vented a lot to stick the landing though we did slide farther up a bit.

Caving in back... but a few puffs of heat and she filled right back out. Stood up nicely.

Since Mo was able, he jumped out and got the crown line loose and ran it out so I opened the top and we let her fall.. and she even did that nicely!

No stakes touched.. no dirt moved ( that you could notice ). Packing up for the four of us was not easy but not a problem at all. She is back in her dry bag tucked away and the basket is ready to go as soon as I get fuel tomorrow... Excellent day for the Monster Crew of Rory, Alan, Mo, and myself.

Here are some of the shots I did get in the air.... Flying and shooting is a measure of patience.. lots of shots and in Program or Auto mode. I have not been unhappy with anything I have gotten from the Sony RX10V4.

The group of balloons for Sunday. Ross's balloon is the white and blue with red stars half inflated. The one being purchased is the turquoise and yellow in the bottom right.

Will in the CAP balloon kiting off all over. Training flight I believe.

Dave goes low and does a landing then take off.

Ross is up with Robert. Heading up and East a bit. Very long shot. Almost 600mm and lots of junk in the air.

That far away. Unser road below us.. we are not paying attention to the speed limit of the road...but we were only cruising at 17 mph at this height.

After landing we got to watch the duckie balloon do some training landings..bounce bounce.

Katrina solos above with not a problem in the world.

After shooting two other Lindstrand racers over the last weekend I took some close up shots of mine to point out differences. On the throat.. Not much other than my scoop and bottom Nomex ( fire proofish fabric ) is color coded to my balloon design.Normally it is black or a solid color.

A huge difference on my racer is that I have wrapped load tapes. See that line going from Left to right in the center of the picture.... Normally you would see the load tape.. mine are wrapped inside the fabric. Also note the diamond weave patters in the upper left. Super strong but slightly heavier fabric.. its beautiful fabric you cant buy anymore.

I love this balloon and Lindstrand USA went above and beyond to make it mine, the way I wanted it in every detail...

Maybe next week I'll show you how crazy I went working on the colors on every part of the system...

So now here are a few of the shots I didn't post from last weekends massive shoot fest.

Here is another Lindstrand racer with exposed load tapes and rip stop nylon fabric.

Shadows of balloons.

Designs can be anything you are willing to pay for. Cuts from the square or not following panels cost extra.. so you had better love your design.

Some balloons are just super colorful. Black looks fantastic at a distance but in our local area black gets covered with dust quickly.. okay.. all the colors get covered in dust.. it just shows more on black. Still looks great though.

A hopper on the right and Keith's 90 on the left... Breeze is big...

Jeff's gorgeous Lindstrand USA racer coming in for a nice point landing. This pattern is registered.

  Holding onto the crown ring while the fabric is squeezed of air. Its big.. its bold.. its awesome!

So many more but I will load them to my web site here soon.. maybe even tomorrow.. and then you can see them all... whew!

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I watched two different You tube videos on getting sharper shots and also getting well lit shots.. both presenters were good and the data interesting and completely useless for in flight shooting.

Its just a completely different process needed. Now.... on the ground with time.. sure.. I will adjust stuff.. but its very rare as I can get an awesome shot with just a couple of tweaks to settings. Maybe when I get the urge to do landscape photography.. but there are so many people doing that that its just a huge load of blah. All the shots look the same.

I have ideas to make that different but I am not sharing.

Lastly I watched a few video reviews of the Nikon P1000 and its 3000mm lens... sigh.. so much has been ripped from the camera that any positives of that much reach are a waste of time. Bigger sensor is needed and better low light ability.. and even with those you are going to have to cut through atmosphere and its always roiling unless its super cold and not foggy... Now.. where it would be good is street shooting when you could be two blocks away and get great up in the face shots. You would also look like you were aiming a cannon at people.

 I might.. ..might in the future rent one to do just street photography and see how well it is with the crisp shots.. I know my Sony RX10V4 can do it... Time to get out of the balloon shooting mode...

Maybe after the Red Rock Rally in December.....