Went to the Shell station down the road this morning to see our local balloon guy sky up.
His Shell Station is fantastic. The attendants work their arses off. If you get 1 gallon of gas they still wash your windows.
He had about 50 folks (red Tee Shirts) filling balloons:
(my darling wife)
Up in the air Junior Birdmen:
Good luck balloon guy...
WOW!
That is pretty darn cool!
They were avoiding burnout!
Looks good to me!
N
Pilots didn't make it far, but the Balloon is still going
"Kent Couch and Fareed Lafta were about seven hours into their flight when they descended, coming down near the community of Post, about 80 miles east of their starting point. But after they scrambled out of the contraption, it floated away, flight organizer Mark Knowles said.
"They came down hard," Knowles said by cellphone. "The craft went back up. It's sitting up in the sky right above us."
A flight website tracker showed it continuing east across Oregon.
Knowles said the balloonists were pelted by hail and snow and buffeted by turbulence before reaching the ground but they were not injured.
"Everybody is walking around," he said."
Awesome photo sequence!
Meanwhile, his evil life insurance agent cackles, "Ahh, another one we can write off as a suicide."
> "Ahh, another one we can write off as a suicide."
You got that straight Cow. His next trip is going to be over Iraq (!) to raise money for Iraqi orphans. I hope some of the fund raiser money is slated to be divided among his own children. I like the guy. The whimsical goofy stuff he does makes me smile. His business is a joy to visit – he treats his people well and has hardly any employee turnover for a gas station/convenience store. But my god I think the altitudes he’s been floating around in have starved his brain of oxygen for too long.
Float a lawn chair suspended from party balloons over IRAQ?
I’m gonna miss the guy
Wish I had the cojones and opportunity to try something like that... physics question though... If the ballast tanks that contain Koolaid are full and they are still managing to rise, is this a case of too little ballast? Hope they brought a bb gun to shoot out a few balloons to obtain equilibrium once in the air!
They did indeed have two BB guns and, for additional backup, blow guns to shoot darts to pop balloons if all else failed. And, as I understand it, the ballast could be jettisoned at half gallon increments. They said each balloon created 4 pound of lift, so they could compensate for balloons randomly popping by dumping 4 pound of ballast.
I tracked him to out over Madras on the tracking web site and then kind of forgot about him, a couple hours later I was in the yard and looked up and there he was over Prineville, the winds had shifted almost 180°!
We watched for awhile and then set chase in the car, pretty fun afternoon, last I saw them they were east of Bowman Dam, traveling easterly on the north side of Prineville Reservoir, they apparently set down not long after in the Post area, had to be a pretty wild ride!
Definitely a little bit crazy, BUT he is having fun and so far has made it back to earth safely!
SHG
Sounds fun Shelby. If you go to the KTVZ web site they have a pre-flight interview with him where he says it takes him about 6 months to emotionally recover from the fear, angst and excitement of landings. But like you say, he's made it back safely every time.
