Kkisses of Fire
I had the chance to fly Kkisses of Fire for my flight review with Eric. This is a Kubicek balloon system. 92,200 cubic foot envelope with dual turning vents, spec basket with door and two 16.2 gallon tanks, Kevlar lightweight floor, attach points galore, pilot restraint system, and very powerful dual burners. That picture above makes it look beautiful but behind the beauty is some fantastic engineering.
My flight path was a goofy one. Since the winds were very variable I didn't just want to go hither and yon but wanted to go for as much West as I could get and found that at 5800. It was about ten feet thick.. drop down and you got shifted South, too high and a shift southish.
So walking it up as far as we could go brought us to the ridge and then things changed again. The zone of West was 50 feet thick and then it all went away for a push North.. which was fine as that was the way I wanted to go. But that was fickle too. So we descended over a road and cut corners and dropped into ground tracking to try and pull some East to work for the launch field. It wasn't there enough to get East at that height so as I was pretty much finished with the review I landed light as a feather beside a road.. yes.. besides... not in the middle blocking traffic ( we also had a rabbit ... a jackrabbit stop right next to us.. like five feet away and just stares at us...until I hit the burner and boom..gone ) I jumped out and Eric went to see if he could find something to the field. He did but it was now up high. He made it and we had a good time after. Not a lot of pictures for the normal reasons. So a few pictures below.
Eric chatting with a passerby as we lift off.
The door.. or part of the door in the basket. So easy to get in and out.
Sundagger low and slow. They did end up going quite a ways South as we worked the West layer.
Mo had Highperactive out to play with and was doing some novel things with the available weird winds.
Kkisses looking all hot against the blue skies.
It was a good day.
Then I decided that since I usually get up around 5 and I could even sleep in a bit ( hah ) I would go out and watch the antics on the field Sunday morning... worst-case scenario was breakfast.
No Breakfast.
The winds were quick on the surface and a bad direction. Trent had a music video photo shoot with a drone to do but it was not possible to stay in one place by itself so they tethered the balloon in place and did a quick shoot... I don't know if it went off but it was what it was. After that, another balloon tried and succeeded to launch and went off okay so then Brian and Shawn gave it a try but found two tears in their envelope so they were grounded. Ross had his and got it up and launched into ...
nothing...
Almost calm winds going the opposite direction and then variable. Ross is learning in his Aerostar 77 ( I had one just like it ) and so lots of kinks to work out and things to process...but they did get it up and launched. I heard they had a great landing at 6mph. Below are my selected shots from today.
Trent glows as he raises the balloon up.
The winds were a whipping.
Up on two teathers and the proposal portion of the video..I have no clue.
The drone makes a loop...
And down the balloon goes. Fast and safe..whew. Optic view in the top of the envelope.
Another balloon works it out that waiting was the better thing and now starts to launch.
Another shot in through the top view of Brian and Shawn's envelope.
Ross puts some heat to her.
Standing up and nice as can be.
With one last touch, they are off in a big loop of the field and heading South and Eastish.
One good shot against the clear blue sky with the chase flag sitting right next to it. Nice flag too.
A fun weekend.... Now for some rest. My eyes are bleeding.
