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Saturday, August 8, 2009
Pennington State Balloon Championships
Well, we may have been grounded yesterday due to inclement weather but that didn't stop us from making the Baton Rouge Advocate!
Read the entire article here.
Better yet, this morning we got up and about. A beautiful launch, a challenging chase through downtown Baton Rouge and the chance to get up close and personal to some very skilled flying by our pilot. Todays challenge included landing beanbags on two huge plastic "X"'s at two different targets. Some skilled flying brought Skybird in very close but a competitors balloon was directly UNDER her, which prevented a good aim at the first X.
The second target, however, very close to River Road and the LSU campus (geaux Tigers!) gave Cap'n David an excellent opportunity. A beautiful approach put Skybird, David and crewmemeber Roni right in line, and a good windup and toss put David and Skybird in fourth place for that competition. Places one through five were all carrying a monetary reward, so David was proud to be taking home some fuel money! A big open music festival field gave us a beatiful spot for a landing, and recovery was excellent, plus we got to enjoy the christening of some new balloonatics.
Keep hoping for good weather tonite and Sunday morning, and as time permits I'll keep updating. Plus, when I get back home and can download some photos we'll have some proof of some seriously skilled flying!
Read the entire article here.
Better yet, this morning we got up and about. A beautiful launch, a challenging chase through downtown Baton Rouge and the chance to get up close and personal to some very skilled flying by our pilot. Todays challenge included landing beanbags on two huge plastic "X"'s at two different targets. Some skilled flying brought Skybird in very close but a competitors balloon was directly UNDER her, which prevented a good aim at the first X.
The second target, however, very close to River Road and the LSU campus (geaux Tigers!) gave Cap'n David an excellent opportunity. A beautiful approach put Skybird, David and crewmemeber Roni right in line, and a good windup and toss put David and Skybird in fourth place for that competition. Places one through five were all carrying a monetary reward, so David was proud to be taking home some fuel money! A big open music festival field gave us a beatiful spot for a landing, and recovery was excellent, plus we got to enjoy the christening of some new balloonatics.
Keep hoping for good weather tonite and Sunday morning, and as time permits I'll keep updating. Plus, when I get back home and can download some photos we'll have some proof of some seriously skilled flying!
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Equilibrium
That's the lesson David taught me this Sunday morning during my third hot air balloon instruction flight. Equilibrium. It's all about the balance.
It's funny how many balloon piloting lessons have very powerful applications in real life. Have balloonists been holding out on us since the late 1700s? Did the Montgolfier's figure this all out and just nod their powdered wig-surmounted heads to each other and slip a sly wink? I'm starting to think so.
Last Sunday morning was a little scary, let's be honest here. It was my first inflation. It's one thing to climb into the basket, the 80,000 cubic feet of Skybird fully inflated and standing upright, teetering on the edge of slipping off into the air like a rather huge feather. It's entirely another thing to walk around the slowly inflating mass of High Hope (herself only 70,000 cubic feet or thereabouts) as the fan cold-packs her with outside air, climbing under the billowing nylon mass to tug and pull the wrinkles out of the side still lying on the ground. It's still another thing to know that as soon as the pilot instructor gives the signal you're going to climb into the rigging that holds the burner in place, put the uppermost mast against your back, straighten your legs a little bit and fire a huge propane burner into that mass of painfully thin nylon.
Sure enough, though, as inevitable as a sunrise the time came. The wrinkled folds of the envelope were all pulled straight, the huge rainbow mass that always strikes me visually as primarily yellow was as cold packed as it was going to get, and it was time. I threaded my six feet two inches into the wooden uprights, reached into the basket to flip the toggle switch for the pilot light, flipped the second toggle on the burner itself and clicked the sparker a few times. A tiny blue flame appeared, not even a finger length long, almost invisible in the tightly coiled pattern of the burner's upper body. A microscopic mirror image of the flame that fills the envelope with lift. I opened the valve on the propane bottle, David switched off the fan, I pressed my shoulders against the upright and straightened my legs, David lifted, said "Aim for the center and HOLD IT THERE" and I squeezed the trigger.
There really isn't a way to describe what happens next. Heck, for that matter all that last paragraph? I had to make that all up. I don't REMEMBER what happened, I just remember doing it. I wasn't thinking about it, not in a "Step one step two step three" sort of way. I knew what had to be done, I'd watched David do it many times. I just knew that if I slipped, if I let my gaze falter for a moment that burner would turn in my hand and I'd scorch a hole in the material big enough to park the truck in, AND possibly burn one of my friends very badly. So, I left my brain alone and did what I knew needed to be done. David had told me, I'd seen him many times before, I knew what to do so I did it.
Holding that wooden handle in my hand, feeling the vibration, the pressure as propane fired out of the burner nozzles at some 240 psi, seeing the flame and knowing in the back of my mind that the huge blue tongue there was around 30 MILLION BTUs...it's a powerful, scary thing.
The inflation went off without a hitch. The balloon filled, Jim held her from springing up too fast by holding fast to the crown line, and I held steady on the burner for what seemed an eternity as the whole thing stood up around me with the slow, stately grace of a fat man getting to his feet. Before I knew it High Hope wasn't a pile of yellow nylon on the ground but a balloon, full and round high above my head, and I was filling her with heat, lift, the power to slide ever so gently off the face of the jealous earth and into the open sky.
At some point I know the basket stood up and I'd stood on the edge of the basket for a moment, then slipped into the wicker's embrace and was getting ready to fly. I think I remember Joy, David's wife patting me on the shoulder telling me that it was a perfect inflation. I'm pretty certain I remember David passing the chase crew radio to me and me thinking "It's not for me this time, it's for Jim" and passing it along to him. I remember slipping the sparker into my back pocket, and the feel of the suede glove between my palm and the hard wooden handle. I remember firing the burner a few more times, slowly, each time testing the weight, feeling for the tipping point, testing earth's grasp on us.
After one such blast, the roar of the burner over my head, the heat washing down on me I felt a stir under my feet. Equilibrium. We were at the balance point, the point between "not-flying" and "flying." I don't know, but the feeling I got--I wonder if that's how new mothers feel when they first feel their infant stir in their womb. I knew it was near time, and moments later "Weight off" was called and we'd done it. We fell up into the sky.
I won't bore you with the flight details--the practice landings, the incredibly dry mouth I realised I had about halfway through the flight when David offered me a bottle of water. The sound of an invisible deer crashing through the woods under us. The multitude of little landings I made BEFORE I made it to the point that David had indicated and said "Now, land THERE" meaning that I should land there once, not hopscotch skip across twenty feet of field in eight-foot tall hops on my way there. I make for a very tentative pilot.
For me, though, it was enough for me that I'd done the process, from taking out parts and bits from the trailer to standing under the Promethean flame as we drifted out across the sky. What I will say is that I began to learn about equilibrium. About that perfect balance point, where just a little extra on one side or the other pushes the whole thing out of skew and you have to correct. You have to work to regain that state of grace. That feeling of flying. David knows it. That sense of being exactly where you need to be, right now. Equilibrium. In balance. Living in the now.
And now that I've felt it, brushed shoulders with it for just a moment before I overcorrected and bobbed high in the air again or undercorrected and hit the ground with a jolt?
I need more.
It's funny how many balloon piloting lessons have very powerful applications in real life. Have balloonists been holding out on us since the late 1700s? Did the Montgolfier's figure this all out and just nod their powdered wig-surmounted heads to each other and slip a sly wink? I'm starting to think so.
Last Sunday morning was a little scary, let's be honest here. It was my first inflation. It's one thing to climb into the basket, the 80,000 cubic feet of Skybird fully inflated and standing upright, teetering on the edge of slipping off into the air like a rather huge feather. It's entirely another thing to walk around the slowly inflating mass of High Hope (herself only 70,000 cubic feet or thereabouts) as the fan cold-packs her with outside air, climbing under the billowing nylon mass to tug and pull the wrinkles out of the side still lying on the ground. It's still another thing to know that as soon as the pilot instructor gives the signal you're going to climb into the rigging that holds the burner in place, put the uppermost mast against your back, straighten your legs a little bit and fire a huge propane burner into that mass of painfully thin nylon.
Sure enough, though, as inevitable as a sunrise the time came. The wrinkled folds of the envelope were all pulled straight, the huge rainbow mass that always strikes me visually as primarily yellow was as cold packed as it was going to get, and it was time. I threaded my six feet two inches into the wooden uprights, reached into the basket to flip the toggle switch for the pilot light, flipped the second toggle on the burner itself and clicked the sparker a few times. A tiny blue flame appeared, not even a finger length long, almost invisible in the tightly coiled pattern of the burner's upper body. A microscopic mirror image of the flame that fills the envelope with lift. I opened the valve on the propane bottle, David switched off the fan, I pressed my shoulders against the upright and straightened my legs, David lifted, said "Aim for the center and HOLD IT THERE" and I squeezed the trigger.
There really isn't a way to describe what happens next. Heck, for that matter all that last paragraph? I had to make that all up. I don't REMEMBER what happened, I just remember doing it. I wasn't thinking about it, not in a "Step one step two step three" sort of way. I knew what had to be done, I'd watched David do it many times. I just knew that if I slipped, if I let my gaze falter for a moment that burner would turn in my hand and I'd scorch a hole in the material big enough to park the truck in, AND possibly burn one of my friends very badly. So, I left my brain alone and did what I knew needed to be done. David had told me, I'd seen him many times before, I knew what to do so I did it.
Holding that wooden handle in my hand, feeling the vibration, the pressure as propane fired out of the burner nozzles at some 240 psi, seeing the flame and knowing in the back of my mind that the huge blue tongue there was around 30 MILLION BTUs...it's a powerful, scary thing.
The inflation went off without a hitch. The balloon filled, Jim held her from springing up too fast by holding fast to the crown line, and I held steady on the burner for what seemed an eternity as the whole thing stood up around me with the slow, stately grace of a fat man getting to his feet. Before I knew it High Hope wasn't a pile of yellow nylon on the ground but a balloon, full and round high above my head, and I was filling her with heat, lift, the power to slide ever so gently off the face of the jealous earth and into the open sky.
At some point I know the basket stood up and I'd stood on the edge of the basket for a moment, then slipped into the wicker's embrace and was getting ready to fly. I think I remember Joy, David's wife patting me on the shoulder telling me that it was a perfect inflation. I'm pretty certain I remember David passing the chase crew radio to me and me thinking "It's not for me this time, it's for Jim" and passing it along to him. I remember slipping the sparker into my back pocket, and the feel of the suede glove between my palm and the hard wooden handle. I remember firing the burner a few more times, slowly, each time testing the weight, feeling for the tipping point, testing earth's grasp on us.
After one such blast, the roar of the burner over my head, the heat washing down on me I felt a stir under my feet. Equilibrium. We were at the balance point, the point between "not-flying" and "flying." I don't know, but the feeling I got--I wonder if that's how new mothers feel when they first feel their infant stir in their womb. I knew it was near time, and moments later "Weight off" was called and we'd done it. We fell up into the sky.
I won't bore you with the flight details--the practice landings, the incredibly dry mouth I realised I had about halfway through the flight when David offered me a bottle of water. The sound of an invisible deer crashing through the woods under us. The multitude of little landings I made BEFORE I made it to the point that David had indicated and said "Now, land THERE" meaning that I should land there once, not hopscotch skip across twenty feet of field in eight-foot tall hops on my way there. I make for a very tentative pilot.
For me, though, it was enough for me that I'd done the process, from taking out parts and bits from the trailer to standing under the Promethean flame as we drifted out across the sky. What I will say is that I began to learn about equilibrium. About that perfect balance point, where just a little extra on one side or the other pushes the whole thing out of skew and you have to correct. You have to work to regain that state of grace. That feeling of flying. David knows it. That sense of being exactly where you need to be, right now. Equilibrium. In balance. Living in the now.
And now that I've felt it, brushed shoulders with it for just a moment before I overcorrected and bobbed high in the air again or undercorrected and hit the ground with a jolt?
I need more.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Becalmed
Which I think adequately describes the state of our blog, too! The long delay has many reasons, none of which we'll delve into here, but since we're on the subject of being becalmed:
One of the great joys of hot air ballooning is that each flight is different from every other flight in the same way that each day is unlike every other that has gone before. Oh, they all follow the same pattern in a general way but each is different. This past weekend we had a flight planned for the Saturday afternoon before Mother's Day. A young couple, parents and grandparents were in attendance as onlookers. Sadly for me, Jim, our incredibly competent Crewchief is halfway through Arkansas on his Harley and headed north on an extended bike tour, which left responsibility squarely on Cookie and I.
Well, we bucked up. Found our launch site, sent up another PI ball, reviewed the map, figured out which roads we'd be chasing on, and set up High Hope. The inflation went well, the passengers boarded and the launch went off without a hitch. That's about the last quiet minute I had.
You see, to begin with there simply weren't any roads near the intended flight path. Cookie and I ended up having to veer northwest of HH, then back northeast to the general landing area. The main sections of road we'd be getting into are heavily forested, too, so we lost line of sight very quickly, then radio contact shortly thereafter.
Now, I worry. It's what I'm good at, so I started. I know David is wildly competent, but being out of visual AND radio contact? Scary. So, after failing miserably to spot HH I finally called David on his cellular and got his whereabouts. Come to find out he was ahead of us a bit, but roughly where we thought he'd be.
As the hour wrapped up we began to worry. Not many inroads toward him, and still no sign of a huge yellow balloon. We kept driving in and out of roads, driveways and turnrows hoping for a sight, but nothing ever presented itself, and dusk was drawing close, as was the fuel limit onboard--I knew he'd be setting down soon, but I couldn't FIND him! Pretty sad stuff for the guy driving the chase truck.
Word soon came--High Hope was down safe. I'd stopped near where I thought the landing spot was, but several honks on the horn went unheard by David, and I couldn't hear the burner. He was further away than we thought. (I found out later that David wasn't just being mean, he had in fact been becalmed--the wind simply stopped, and instead of making it to the highway like he'd planned he had to put down at the only safe spot he had.)
I was about to venture a little gentle trespass into a huge field full of massive Texas Longhorn steers when a Yamaha Rhino ATV truck pulled up, filled with landowners. Seems they'd seen the flight land on their property (I was close, by several miles they told me, if he'd landed where they thought he had) and that it'd be tricky to get to them. Seems these nice folks own eight THOUSAND acres, and we'd landed in the midst of them. No roads, no easy access.
So, just to be sure they took Cookie away in one of the ATVs into the very pasture I was about to break-and-enter, and I sat and waited with two generations of the family, phoning back and forth to David. He'd had to walk the still-inflated balloon quite a ways across ankle-deep water mixed with knee-high briars but had the gondola and passengers safely on high ground and was headed for what he thought was a road.
Long story short (I know, too late!) I spent an hour, perhaps more trying to reassure the parents and grandparents that we'd not lost their kids. This in the midst of a night of that quality of dark that only the deep country can manage. We kept seeing headlights flicker in and out of the treeline, but never a sound. Come to find out the balloon wasn't but a few miles from where we'd finally stopped, but the route getting TO them was so torturous and twisted (following fencelines and paralleling natural barricades like deep creeks and a huge lake) that it took twenty minutes at a good safe (fast) speed on the ATV just to get to them. Cookie and company met David, then got to the balloon and rescued the passengers who were hunkered down in the basket swatting mosquitoe swarms with the flight manual. After an hour and a half I saw headlights and heard the burring of the ATV returning. The passengers (in good spirits) reunited with loved ones and went back homewards.
Not so us. We still had a recovery to attend to, and it was already 9 pm.
We followed the ATV and landowner back into the forest preserve that was their property. Twenty five careful minutes following in the truck, wending our way down dirt tracks, embankments and around massive creeks and sinkholes brought us to a retired rice paddy thick with mosquitoes and, we were told, over two hundred head of wild boar. We packed balloon and envelope up after a sweaty struggle through thick grass and biting bugs and locked up the trailer. After a brief confab with the landowner, David, against his better judgement turned the truck around off the embankment and through the standing water, as the landowner was certain our four-wheel drive truck could make it, instead of having David suffer backing truck and trailer up some fifty or sixty feet.
Naturally we got stuck. The heavy truck and equally heavy trailer managed to sink us up to the axles, and sadly the little ATV couldn't pull us free, so...another twenty minute ride back to civilization for the landowner, who drove back (another half hour) with a truly massive, two-story tall John Deere. Without headlights. How he managed to drive that monstrous thing through that winding pair of dirt ruts and barely visible trails back to us sans headlights is beyond me and a testiment to his night vision, but that's what it took.
The tractor made short work of getting the truck out (that's David there, directing the tractor back onto high land,) but during the daring Rhino rescue we'd unhooked the trailer, thinking the little ATV might be able to pull just the truck out. What it DID manage was to pull it just far enough forward that we couldn't get the trailer hooked up again. The tractor had to creep back into the water and, using a nylon tow strap David had in the truck the two of them tied the trailer's tongue to the forklift bars mounted to the front of the tractor and the most ginger excavation began. It would have been comical, were it not so late, were we not so exhausted and were the mosquitoes not so starving for our blood.
My writing this tells you we did finally escape, hale and hearty, but from the landing to the moment we closed the last gate behind us and touched solid asphalt took just over four hours. In eighteen years of flying, David related to us, THIS was the longest recovery in his almost seven hundred flights, including, he pointed out, the recovery wherein the local rescue services had to bring out a helicopter to help the chase crew locate the balloon.
Talk about a feather in my cap.
But, lesson learned. As Tolkien once said, not all who wander are lost, and best you learn to keep your feet when you walk out your front door to go hot-air ballooning--you never know where you're going to end up.
One of the great joys of hot air ballooning is that each flight is different from every other flight in the same way that each day is unlike every other that has gone before. Oh, they all follow the same pattern in a general way but each is different. This past weekend we had a flight planned for the Saturday afternoon before Mother's Day. A young couple, parents and grandparents were in attendance as onlookers. Sadly for me, Jim, our incredibly competent Crewchief is halfway through Arkansas on his Harley and headed north on an extended bike tour, which left responsibility squarely on Cookie and I.
Well, we bucked up. Found our launch site, sent up another PI ball, reviewed the map, figured out which roads we'd be chasing on, and set up High Hope. The inflation went well, the passengers boarded and the launch went off without a hitch. That's about the last quiet minute I had.
You see, to begin with there simply weren't any roads near the intended flight path. Cookie and I ended up having to veer northwest of HH, then back northeast to the general landing area. The main sections of road we'd be getting into are heavily forested, too, so we lost line of sight very quickly, then radio contact shortly thereafter.
Now, I worry. It's what I'm good at, so I started. I know David is wildly competent, but being out of visual AND radio contact? Scary. So, after failing miserably to spot HH I finally called David on his cellular and got his whereabouts. Come to find out he was ahead of us a bit, but roughly where we thought he'd be.
As the hour wrapped up we began to worry. Not many inroads toward him, and still no sign of a huge yellow balloon. We kept driving in and out of roads, driveways and turnrows hoping for a sight, but nothing ever presented itself, and dusk was drawing close, as was the fuel limit onboard--I knew he'd be setting down soon, but I couldn't FIND him! Pretty sad stuff for the guy driving the chase truck.
Word soon came--High Hope was down safe. I'd stopped near where I thought the landing spot was, but several honks on the horn went unheard by David, and I couldn't hear the burner. He was further away than we thought. (I found out later that David wasn't just being mean, he had in fact been becalmed--the wind simply stopped, and instead of making it to the highway like he'd planned he had to put down at the only safe spot he had.)
I was about to venture a little gentle trespass into a huge field full of massive Texas Longhorn steers when a Yamaha Rhino ATV truck pulled up, filled with landowners. Seems they'd seen the flight land on their property (I was close, by several miles they told me, if he'd landed where they thought he had) and that it'd be tricky to get to them. Seems these nice folks own eight THOUSAND acres, and we'd landed in the midst of them. No roads, no easy access.
So, just to be sure they took Cookie away in one of the ATVs into the very pasture I was about to break-and-enter, and I sat and waited with two generations of the family, phoning back and forth to David. He'd had to walk the still-inflated balloon quite a ways across ankle-deep water mixed with knee-high briars but had the gondola and passengers safely on high ground and was headed for what he thought was a road.
Long story short (I know, too late!) I spent an hour, perhaps more trying to reassure the parents and grandparents that we'd not lost their kids. This in the midst of a night of that quality of dark that only the deep country can manage. We kept seeing headlights flicker in and out of the treeline, but never a sound. Come to find out the balloon wasn't but a few miles from where we'd finally stopped, but the route getting TO them was so torturous and twisted (following fencelines and paralleling natural barricades like deep creeks and a huge lake) that it took twenty minutes at a good safe (fast) speed on the ATV just to get to them. Cookie and company met David, then got to the balloon and rescued the passengers who were hunkered down in the basket swatting mosquitoe swarms with the flight manual. After an hour and a half I saw headlights and heard the burring of the ATV returning. The passengers (in good spirits) reunited with loved ones and went back homewards.
Not so us. We still had a recovery to attend to, and it was already 9 pm.
We followed the ATV and landowner back into the forest preserve that was their property. Twenty five careful minutes following in the truck, wending our way down dirt tracks, embankments and around massive creeks and sinkholes brought us to a retired rice paddy thick with mosquitoes and, we were told, over two hundred head of wild boar. We packed balloon and envelope up after a sweaty struggle through thick grass and biting bugs and locked up the trailer. After a brief confab with the landowner, David, against his better judgement turned the truck around off the embankment and through the standing water, as the landowner was certain our four-wheel drive truck could make it, instead of having David suffer backing truck and trailer up some fifty or sixty feet.
Naturally we got stuck. The heavy truck and equally heavy trailer managed to sink us up to the axles, and sadly the little ATV couldn't pull us free, so...another twenty minute ride back to civilization for the landowner, who drove back (another half hour) with a truly massive, two-story tall John Deere. Without headlights. How he managed to drive that monstrous thing through that winding pair of dirt ruts and barely visible trails back to us sans headlights is beyond me and a testiment to his night vision, but that's what it took.
The tractor made short work of getting the truck out (that's David there, directing the tractor back onto high land,) but during the daring Rhino rescue we'd unhooked the trailer, thinking the little ATV might be able to pull just the truck out. What it DID manage was to pull it just far enough forward that we couldn't get the trailer hooked up again. The tractor had to creep back into the water and, using a nylon tow strap David had in the truck the two of them tied the trailer's tongue to the forklift bars mounted to the front of the tractor and the most ginger excavation began. It would have been comical, were it not so late, were we not so exhausted and were the mosquitoes not so starving for our blood.
My writing this tells you we did finally escape, hale and hearty, but from the landing to the moment we closed the last gate behind us and touched solid asphalt took just over four hours. In eighteen years of flying, David related to us, THIS was the longest recovery in his almost seven hundred flights, including, he pointed out, the recovery wherein the local rescue services had to bring out a helicopter to help the chase crew locate the balloon.
Talk about a feather in my cap.
But, lesson learned. As Tolkien once said, not all who wander are lost, and best you learn to keep your feet when you walk out your front door to go hot-air ballooning--you never know where you're going to end up.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Hope And Faith
Flying with Skybird and her crew is never a dull event. There's always something to learn, some new experience, some unfamiliar bit of road (or field or pasture or landowner's back yard) to find out about and usually drive through.
When a flight is complete we always have the after-flight ceremony, and at some point David will ask the passenger(s) if they enjoyed the flight. So far as I know he's never gotten a negative answer to that question, but I do know that invariably he tells them some variation of the sentiment "Good, but we enjoyed it more." I'm starting to see the very deep truth of that as I continue to grow with this extended family of the air. No matter how much our passengers enjoyed themselves it still remains that we've been able to BRING them this experience; the joy, the sense of freedom, the beauty that is flight, and that makes the returns to us manifold.
This past Thursday we had a very special passenger aboard indeed. A passenger who has been trying to go up in a cross-country flight for a very long time, ever since she rode with us on a tethered flight at a church social she attended, and probably long before that evening. Her name is Hope, and while it's not polite to reveal a lady's age I will say that she's probably in the Top Ten of our Oldest Passengers. I think, however, and much more importantly after Thursday's flight she's been ranked Number 1 on our Most Special Passengers list.
Miss Hope, you see, has had severe cerebral palsy since she was born. I can only assume that she's been in a wheelchair all her life, and she couldn't talk to us with words, but such things don't seem to have stopped her from doing whatever she sets her mind to, and going up for a free flight in a hot air balloon was on her mind. Her family bought her the flight for Christmas and between one thing and another it didn't come together until this last Thursday.
The meet went as planned--a whole convoy of friends and family came along to witness this flight. The wind wanted to be uncooperative at first, but I could tell by the set of David's jaw that as long as he could keep his safety margin intact he was going to make this flight happen if he had to go it alone. Susie, Cookie, Jim and I were there though to make sure he had all the help he and Miss Hope needed to become airborne. A quick test-fit of Miss Hope's wheelchair, a careful arranging of pillows and such and a little quick work with a wrench on Miss Hope's chair rendered it small enough that it would fit inside the gondola. Granted it left just enough room for David and Miss Hope's caregiver Justin to sort of cram in, but that's all they needed!
One propane tank of Skybird's four had to be sacrificed for space but the lightening of the load just made it that much easier to get aloft, and get aloft they did, from a friendly landowner's pasture in Lecompte. The flight itself was one of the more lovely ones--clear skies almost the entire time, lots of fields and forest to fly over, and acres of yellow flowers dotting the landscape. The chase truck and us of the crew had a grand time watching the parade of cars follow us from point to point as we kept just ahead of Skybird, and we even garnered a few extras along the way, folks who couldn't help but notice the beautiful blue and white and orange sight!
The landing was one of the more picturesque David has performed, and actually took place in the same spot as the last time he impressed me with his flight skills. The approach occurred over the course of some fifty yards, with David holding the basket aloft less than a foot over the ground, drifting along like a giant blue and orange seagull-covered snowflake. It never ceases to amaze me what control he manages, and I could see by the joyous expressions on Justin and Miss Hope's faces that they were really enjoying the extra treat. David drifted the balloon carefully across the field like a Pasha in his palanquin, bringing along his passengers on a royal parade toward the eagerly awaiting arms and smiles of family and friends. He even managed to 'run over' a fire-ant mound with the corner of the gondola, just to put the icing on the cake!
The sunset was exceptionally beautiful as we performed the ceremony, and all too soon the family and friends bundled up and headed home. They left us crew with smiles and a deep sense of pride that we could bring such joy to folks, and that we could manage to overcome a few minor difficulties to carry along a wonderful lady whose needs were a little more special than those of other folks. I can't begin to imagine what she's had to overcome in her life, but I know this--the fact that we could in some small way bring some light and joy to her simply by being there to help her dream come true was worth any difficulties, any discomfort. She helped remind us that no matter how hard things might get, no matter how steep the path is, all you have to do is keep moving forward, keep your eye on the horizon and let your determination guide you.
I said earlier that she couldn't talk with words, but she could certainly talk with her eyes and her smile. There's no question about it--we all knew that she was feeling the same joy, the same freedom, the same sense of having done something exraordinary by going up in the balloon, feeling for just a moment that, as the famous poem says, we've slipped the surly bounds of Earth and touched the face of God. We know that feeling very well, and saw it alight and take fire in HER eyes. She's one of us now--an aeronaut, a wind-walker, a traveler with the birds.
Thank you, Miss Hope, for sharing your joy with us.
_________________
Photos of Miss Hope's flight can be found here.
When a flight is complete we always have the after-flight ceremony, and at some point David will ask the passenger(s) if they enjoyed the flight. So far as I know he's never gotten a negative answer to that question, but I do know that invariably he tells them some variation of the sentiment "Good, but we enjoyed it more." I'm starting to see the very deep truth of that as I continue to grow with this extended family of the air. No matter how much our passengers enjoyed themselves it still remains that we've been able to BRING them this experience; the joy, the sense of freedom, the beauty that is flight, and that makes the returns to us manifold.
This past Thursday we had a very special passenger aboard indeed. A passenger who has been trying to go up in a cross-country flight for a very long time, ever since she rode with us on a tethered flight at a church social she attended, and probably long before that evening. Her name is Hope, and while it's not polite to reveal a lady's age I will say that she's probably in the Top Ten of our Oldest Passengers. I think, however, and much more importantly after Thursday's flight she's been ranked Number 1 on our Most Special Passengers list.
Miss Hope, you see, has had severe cerebral palsy since she was born. I can only assume that she's been in a wheelchair all her life, and she couldn't talk to us with words, but such things don't seem to have stopped her from doing whatever she sets her mind to, and going up for a free flight in a hot air balloon was on her mind. Her family bought her the flight for Christmas and between one thing and another it didn't come together until this last Thursday.
The meet went as planned--a whole convoy of friends and family came along to witness this flight. The wind wanted to be uncooperative at first, but I could tell by the set of David's jaw that as long as he could keep his safety margin intact he was going to make this flight happen if he had to go it alone. Susie, Cookie, Jim and I were there though to make sure he had all the help he and Miss Hope needed to become airborne. A quick test-fit of Miss Hope's wheelchair, a careful arranging of pillows and such and a little quick work with a wrench on Miss Hope's chair rendered it small enough that it would fit inside the gondola. Granted it left just enough room for David and Miss Hope's caregiver Justin to sort of cram in, but that's all they needed!
One propane tank of Skybird's four had to be sacrificed for space but the lightening of the load just made it that much easier to get aloft, and get aloft they did, from a friendly landowner's pasture in Lecompte. The flight itself was one of the more lovely ones--clear skies almost the entire time, lots of fields and forest to fly over, and acres of yellow flowers dotting the landscape. The chase truck and us of the crew had a grand time watching the parade of cars follow us from point to point as we kept just ahead of Skybird, and we even garnered a few extras along the way, folks who couldn't help but notice the beautiful blue and white and orange sight!
The landing was one of the more picturesque David has performed, and actually took place in the same spot as the last time he impressed me with his flight skills. The approach occurred over the course of some fifty yards, with David holding the basket aloft less than a foot over the ground, drifting along like a giant blue and orange seagull-covered snowflake. It never ceases to amaze me what control he manages, and I could see by the joyous expressions on Justin and Miss Hope's faces that they were really enjoying the extra treat. David drifted the balloon carefully across the field like a Pasha in his palanquin, bringing along his passengers on a royal parade toward the eagerly awaiting arms and smiles of family and friends. He even managed to 'run over' a fire-ant mound with the corner of the gondola, just to put the icing on the cake!
The sunset was exceptionally beautiful as we performed the ceremony, and all too soon the family and friends bundled up and headed home. They left us crew with smiles and a deep sense of pride that we could bring such joy to folks, and that we could manage to overcome a few minor difficulties to carry along a wonderful lady whose needs were a little more special than those of other folks. I can't begin to imagine what she's had to overcome in her life, but I know this--the fact that we could in some small way bring some light and joy to her simply by being there to help her dream come true was worth any difficulties, any discomfort. She helped remind us that no matter how hard things might get, no matter how steep the path is, all you have to do is keep moving forward, keep your eye on the horizon and let your determination guide you.
I said earlier that she couldn't talk with words, but she could certainly talk with her eyes and her smile. There's no question about it--we all knew that she was feeling the same joy, the same freedom, the same sense of having done something exraordinary by going up in the balloon, feeling for just a moment that, as the famous poem says, we've slipped the surly bounds of Earth and touched the face of God. We know that feeling very well, and saw it alight and take fire in HER eyes. She's one of us now--an aeronaut, a wind-walker, a traveler with the birds.
Thank you, Miss Hope, for sharing your joy with us.
_________________
Photos of Miss Hope's flight can be found here.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Earning Our Stripes, One Engagement At A Time
Remember that young couple I wrote about back in mid December of last year? I think they've earned the Most Patient Novice Balloonists Of The Year Award, if we gave out such a thing. Their sheer perseverance in the face of inclement weather and a pilot who refuses to take safety risks paid big dividends this last weekend.
Winter, or at least the colder months are more suited for ballooning. Naturally, hot air rises faster in cold, thick air, so the pilot gets more flight out of less fuel, and the passengers get more air time. The drawback to winter flying, beside the cold is the tricky weather.
That nice young couple that wanted to fly? I couldn't mention, then, that the young man who was buying the flight for his girlfriend wanted to use the opportunity to propose marriage to her! I have to tip my hat to him--he was forced to reschedule THREE TIMES. Every time we met for a flight the wind would either be just about gale force or would come up at the last moment and force the flight to be scrubbed. Safety is the operative word here--a high speed landing in a hot air balloon's basket will easily outweigh any pleasant feelings engendered from the engagement and the sparkling ring.
But, he was patient, and he persevered, both traits which will serve him well in married life. The fourth flight was the charm.
And almost didn't happen.
Wind again, you see. Lots of it. We met at the local Burger King, sent up a PI ball, got a heading and set out to the launch site. Upon arriving another PI ball was sent up, and we found that the wind direction had changed. Not just a few degrees but radically, causing us to all pile back in the truck and head for a whole different part of the country to launch from!
I guess the traveling time from Sommerville Airport to the Milton Family Christmas Tree Farm made the difference--the wind settled, we unloaded the gear and set to setting up. Skybird was just standing up good when the wind whipped up, and our couple got first-hand experience in helping wrangle a lively critter indeed, while yours truly at the ground control line was dragged back and forth across the ground. Again, perseverance paid off and we completed the inflation and had a clean launch into a beautiful, cloud-dappled evening sky. The chase crew recovered our gear and piled in, cameras snapping.
Engagement Flight Set on Flickr
Vulgar Wizard's Flickr set
The chase was fairly uneventful, taking place across terrain fairly familiar to us. We all cheered inside the truck's cab when David came on the radio and said, joyously "We have a proposal!" and the two photographers piled out at a perfectly-picked fly-over spot and snapped like mad.
The landing turned out to be the moment where we'd have to earn all those free post-flight breakfasts. Thus far as a ground crew we've had it pretty easy, to be quite frank. A few high-wind inflations, a few fast landings, a barked shin or a scratched finger. Nothing to test our mettle, I guess you could say. Well, this was our opportunity.
A certain sugar cane field has served in the past as an excellent landing spot. Lots of wide, clean turn rows, excellent road access and acre upon acre of open, flat terrain. This was to be our landing spot this evening, but unfortunately lots of rain the previous nights had turned it into a mud pit. We were forced almost immediately to put the truck in four-wheel drive just to get CLOSE to a good recovery spot, whereupon it became mired. My cohort and I leaped out and started talking, through Jim, to David to decide what we were going to do, where we'd recover, etc.
She and I ended up traipsing through LOTS of mud a hundred yards or so from the truck to the recovery spot. The landing itself was excellent, thanks to the efforts of our skilled pilot. The mud, however, refused to help, and being unable to get the truck to where we were (Jim fought it bravely long enough to get it unstuck and back to the highway before losing it for good in the sucking mud) we decided to carry her.
Now, we didn't carry her in the conventional sense. I'm sure the ride was more like a palanquin ride for our passengers and pilot--VW and I walked alongside while David kept Skybird about two feet off the ground. Each of us hauled on a handhold and pulled until she was moving along at about walking speed. It didn't help that we were next to a rodeo barn, so we had a whole herd of cowkids yelling and whooping at the sight--two people towing an 80' tall balloon across a muddy field while three others rode along in sun-setting splendor.
I'm not sure of the exact distance but I'm thinking we covered the better part of half a mile that evening, towing that huge orange and blue beast. The groom-to-be did an admirable job of operating the burner when David decided that our gasping and rattling was cause for him to debark and assist in the towing, and after an interminable time we got close enough to the highway to pull the top and let the envelope deflate.
A heck of a lot of very rewarding, VERY physical effort, a nice post-flight ceremony and a cold trip home in the dark wrapped the evening up, and I have to say it was memorable for more than one reason--while I personally haven't had to unpack every item in the gondola so we can lift it over a fence (apparently it's happened before) I did had to put a heck of a lot of effort into crewing that evening. Furthermore, we made an otherwise 'ordinary' balloon flight into an extra special one for two very nice folks, and it all built further pride in me in our team.
Bring it on, swamps and fences and tricky recoveries! I've earned my stripes!
_____________________
All our best wishes for a long and successful marriage go out from the entire Skybird crew to our newly-engaged couple! May you have many long years of happiness ahead of you both!
Winter, or at least the colder months are more suited for ballooning. Naturally, hot air rises faster in cold, thick air, so the pilot gets more flight out of less fuel, and the passengers get more air time. The drawback to winter flying, beside the cold is the tricky weather.
That nice young couple that wanted to fly? I couldn't mention, then, that the young man who was buying the flight for his girlfriend wanted to use the opportunity to propose marriage to her! I have to tip my hat to him--he was forced to reschedule THREE TIMES. Every time we met for a flight the wind would either be just about gale force or would come up at the last moment and force the flight to be scrubbed. Safety is the operative word here--a high speed landing in a hot air balloon's basket will easily outweigh any pleasant feelings engendered from the engagement and the sparkling ring.
But, he was patient, and he persevered, both traits which will serve him well in married life. The fourth flight was the charm.
And almost didn't happen.
Wind again, you see. Lots of it. We met at the local Burger King, sent up a PI ball, got a heading and set out to the launch site. Upon arriving another PI ball was sent up, and we found that the wind direction had changed. Not just a few degrees but radically, causing us to all pile back in the truck and head for a whole different part of the country to launch from!
I guess the traveling time from Sommerville Airport to the Milton Family Christmas Tree Farm made the difference--the wind settled, we unloaded the gear and set to setting up. Skybird was just standing up good when the wind whipped up, and our couple got first-hand experience in helping wrangle a lively critter indeed, while yours truly at the ground control line was dragged back and forth across the ground. Again, perseverance paid off and we completed the inflation and had a clean launch into a beautiful, cloud-dappled evening sky. The chase crew recovered our gear and piled in, cameras snapping.
Engagement Flight Set on Flickr
Vulgar Wizard's Flickr set
The chase was fairly uneventful, taking place across terrain fairly familiar to us. We all cheered inside the truck's cab when David came on the radio and said, joyously "We have a proposal!" and the two photographers piled out at a perfectly-picked fly-over spot and snapped like mad.
The landing turned out to be the moment where we'd have to earn all those free post-flight breakfasts. Thus far as a ground crew we've had it pretty easy, to be quite frank. A few high-wind inflations, a few fast landings, a barked shin or a scratched finger. Nothing to test our mettle, I guess you could say. Well, this was our opportunity.
A certain sugar cane field has served in the past as an excellent landing spot. Lots of wide, clean turn rows, excellent road access and acre upon acre of open, flat terrain. This was to be our landing spot this evening, but unfortunately lots of rain the previous nights had turned it into a mud pit. We were forced almost immediately to put the truck in four-wheel drive just to get CLOSE to a good recovery spot, whereupon it became mired. My cohort and I leaped out and started talking, through Jim, to David to decide what we were going to do, where we'd recover, etc.
She and I ended up traipsing through LOTS of mud a hundred yards or so from the truck to the recovery spot. The landing itself was excellent, thanks to the efforts of our skilled pilot. The mud, however, refused to help, and being unable to get the truck to where we were (Jim fought it bravely long enough to get it unstuck and back to the highway before losing it for good in the sucking mud) we decided to carry her.
Now, we didn't carry her in the conventional sense. I'm sure the ride was more like a palanquin ride for our passengers and pilot--VW and I walked alongside while David kept Skybird about two feet off the ground. Each of us hauled on a handhold and pulled until she was moving along at about walking speed. It didn't help that we were next to a rodeo barn, so we had a whole herd of cowkids yelling and whooping at the sight--two people towing an 80' tall balloon across a muddy field while three others rode along in sun-setting splendor.
I'm not sure of the exact distance but I'm thinking we covered the better part of half a mile that evening, towing that huge orange and blue beast. The groom-to-be did an admirable job of operating the burner when David decided that our gasping and rattling was cause for him to debark and assist in the towing, and after an interminable time we got close enough to the highway to pull the top and let the envelope deflate.
A heck of a lot of very rewarding, VERY physical effort, a nice post-flight ceremony and a cold trip home in the dark wrapped the evening up, and I have to say it was memorable for more than one reason--while I personally haven't had to unpack every item in the gondola so we can lift it over a fence (apparently it's happened before) I did had to put a heck of a lot of effort into crewing that evening. Furthermore, we made an otherwise 'ordinary' balloon flight into an extra special one for two very nice folks, and it all built further pride in me in our team.
Bring it on, swamps and fences and tricky recoveries! I've earned my stripes!
_____________________
All our best wishes for a long and successful marriage go out from the entire Skybird crew to our newly-engaged couple! May you have many long years of happiness ahead of you both!
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