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.
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.....
