Ballooning

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This one is from a few years ago. Had I had a better camera with me on that day, I would have stood a chance of winning the photo contest with that one. I always have only my phone with me when those good pictures pop up.

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>>869829

Wow Anon! That looks amazing!

Always wanted to ask if it's really true that landing is the most dangerous part of ballooning?

>>869829
>>869831
>>869833
>>869834
Cool beans man. I'd be terrified though honestly. I don't do water and air. I keep my legs and lungs on land. I had some friends who used to balloon but I never went with them. Looks like such a peaceful thing to do.

>>869846
Yes, landing is the dangerous part. No brakes, no steering. Power lines are a big deal.

>>869861
we had 20 people die at once here in texas a few months ago due to power lines vs baloon.

I have heard all the reasons to do it from my friends that do, but I think it is peaceful enough to watch them float by.

I do sort of dangerous stuff, but I just don't like how helpless you can be in a baloon. anytime I even consider it I think of the opening chapter of enduring love and nope the fuck out

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>>870430
Pic is from this morning.

How dangerous ballooning is depends A LOT on the pilot. I trust my pilots, and I'm also not shy about pointing obstacles and power lines out to them. They don't want me to be shy about it either.

I've been up enough times in the busiest conditions in the world that, even though I don't have my license, I could pilot a balloon if need be. With a car, you can go left or right or accelerate or stop on demand. With a balloon, they do not immediately react to many things that you do, and it boils down to judgment. Even though you're still going down, if you have burned long enough, you will eventually in 30 or 60 seconds start going up. A lot of times, you can hear the uprights creaking because the envelope is pulling harder on the basket, but it takes a bit to change the momentum of the balloon and the couple of thousand pounds of air inside it. You have to think minutes ahead and pay attention to what the balloon is doing. That's why a good pilot appreciates it when you point power lines out even if it looks like you're not going to get close to them. It ensures that he can plan those minutes ahead. Normally, when people get killed, it is because the pilot made a bad judgment call.

If you ever want to go up, do choose your pilot wisely. I've been on some rough landings, but I've never felt that my life was in danger, even after the fact.

>>869829
Well yeah i did it, my godfather is a hotair ballon pilot, and he owns a company and now they produce ballons. I havent flown for years, i miss it.

>>869846
Actualy the weather can be dangerous, iam mean if its changing qvickly. Also hotair bubbles or chimneys what we call "termik" can be dangerous too.

About landing, it depends how fast you need to take off. If there is a gib place and there is no hurry, a swift stall could be done, by not heating. It feels like going down one step on the stairs. But ofc, if you have to pull the rope what removes the textile on the upper part, than takeoffs can be hard.

>>869847
Bro, i did pg and balloning. Actualy if you can fly when the weather is good and the pilot is good you can hook on it. By the way if you start it, you shouldnt jump in it, you should do step by step and get use to it.

>>869861
Well you can gain hight by controlling the tourch, and you can decraise the speed of stall by tourching. And you got the rope what removes the textile, whit this you can decraise the altitude.
By the way, at varius altitudes the wind can blow inother directions. In a wheather what we call anticyclone you can even fly back to the spot where you takeoff.
But i totaly agree that power lines and faulty gas tanks and the qvickly changing weather is the big deal.

Guys thankyou for opening this post. Well actualy i feel sadness that i havent flown for a while. Ask anything, if i have time and knowledge maybe i can provide answer. And sorry because of my english :)

>>869829 (OP)
Well yeah i did it, my godfather is a hotair ballon pilot, and he owns a company and now they produce ballons. I havent flown for years, i miss it.

>>869846
Actualy the weather can be dangerous. I meen if its changing qvickly. Also hotair bubbles or chimneys what we call "termik" can be dangerous.

About landing, it depends how fast you need to do it. If there is a big place and there is no hurry, a swift stall could be done, by not heating, decraising the temperature of the cupola. It feels like going down one step on the stairs.
But ofc, if you have to pull the rope what removes the textile on the upper part, than takeoffs can be hard.

>>869847
Bro, i did pg and balloning. Actualy if you can fly when the weather is good plus the pilot is experianced you can hook on it. By the way if you start it, you shouldnt jump in it, you should do step by step and get use to it.

>>869861
Well you can gain altitude by controlling the tourch, and you can decraise the speed of stall by tourching. And you got the rope what removes the textile, whit this you can decraise the altitude faster.
By the way, at varius altitudes the wind can blow in to other directions. In a wheather what we call anticyclone you can even fly back to the spot where you did the takeoff.
But i totaly agree that power lines are dangerous. I just want to mention faulty gas tanks, and sudden change of the weather.

Guys thankyou for opening this post. Well actualy i feel sadness that i havent flown for a while. Ask anything, if i have time and knowledge maybe i can provide answer. And sorry because of my english :)

Corrected my grammar and some terms.

>>870463

Fortunately, Albuquerque doesn't get much in the way of thermals during early October mornings, and if there is a significant chance of heavy downdrafts, they cancel the flights. The biggest danger here is when a front is expected to hit in the afternoon, and it hits a few hours early for those who fly in the 2nd wave. That is what caused what was undoubtedly the roughest landing that I was on. We went from a ~1 1/2 hour beautiful flight with light winds to looking for a place to land @25mph in about 5 minutes, and the pilot had a hard time ripping the crown out when we found a place. We were dragged up quite a number of terraces before he finally got the top out. It's a Cameron balloon if that helps for telling you how it goes together. He assures me that if something like that happens again, he is going to have me yanking on that line to ensure that the top gets popped.


For non-balloonists, when doing a high speed landing, and 25mph (~40kph) is smoking fast for a balloon, you look for a big open area, get 5'-10' off the ground, and rip the top out as fast as you can. You drop quickly, which helps to shed speed when you hit, and with the top wide open, the wind pushes the air out of the envelope so that it doesn't act like a sail and drag you along.

Fantastic thread.

Never done ballooning in my life but this thread sparked an interest in that field.

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https://youtu.be/La4Dcd1aUcE

Eyyyyy what's up bro, Albuquerquefag here
New Mexico is a god tier /out/ state

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I knew I couldn't be the only one here

>>870475
Termiks, or as you call it thermals, are danagerous mostly in the summer, from about 9am to 16-18pm. Espacialy in the the cities, if the mission is hoovering, or advertising.

Well yeah at autumn it isnt a bigdeal. If the wind, 5 m/s is doable if there isnt big blows, thats about 15-20 km/h .But that wind is more like for the paraglider pilots...

Well my first flight was ended in a quite big dragging, even the basket was filled up with terrain. I know what are you talking about, hope nobody got hurt..

Well i dont know mutch about Cameron ballons. I just did see them when we repaired them, but i never had chance to fly with it. But that canary yellow can be sexy. When i touched the textile it was quite rubbish. It had manoovering holes on the sides of the cupola to enable it to turn around. I found this an unneeded feature. Plus i did hear that the tapes what holds the panels bouth vertical and horisontal had problems with the stiching. So if it rips it can rip all over it. But i dont know anything about the new models, just one thing, that they are expensive. Too expensive, you can get cheaper what can hold up for quite a long time.

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>>870836
Shhhh! I want people to continue to believe that we're a shithole and tell them "fuck off, we're full."

A few more pics this morning.

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>>870860
This one doesn't have maneuvering holes. I don't know how they measure the size in Europe, but this one is 77,000 cubic feet. That's 2180 cubic meters, so not tiny, but by no means large. Some of the ride balloons (or cattle cars as we call them) are 400,000 cubic feet.

But yeah, nobody was hurt on my highest speed landing. It did bend the basket though.

>>870809
Haha! The balloon I crew for is in the upper right of that photo.

>>870859
Have you noticed that the grass has gone from green to a sickly gray from all of the vehicles driving on it?

>>871034
Yup
Balloon Fiesta turns the city into a madhouse
Have you been to Frontier at any point this week? It's nuts

>>871034
>Haha! The balloon I crew for is in the upper right of that photo.
hA that's awesome. it was literally just a random grab of google images too

>>871117
I haven't been to that side of town since the Fiesta started. I live close enough to the field that I either participate, or I hate the Fiesta. When you have a crew parking pass or can ride onto the field with your pilot, life is golden. When you have to deal with the traffic and roads being closed down, it sucks balls. But, I've heard that economically, each Fiesta is like half a Superbowl for Albuquerque, so we're going to put up with the traffic.

>>871315
I mean we only have like two claims to fame: the Fiesta and Breaking Bad

>>871028
We measure it in m3, cubicmeters. I had chance too see a ballon and basket what can carry 12 and more people. But i prefer ballons what can carry 6 people.

Whats the material of the basket there?

>>871396
Most baskets are wicker, though I'm not sure what plant they are made from. They'll have some sort of metal frame that the stuff is weaved around, and the uprights are either metal or some polymer that is pretty tough. The baskets that I've seen from European balloonists look fairly similar in construction, though I haven't gone up and really looked for differences. I've seen baskets where they use some polymer instead of the plant material, but they're pretty rare.

How do you get into ballooning?

>>871470

Well, we dont have polymer in it. But we had a basket what had polymer frames what holds the tourch. I hated it, soo mutch. I always had the fear that it will rip into pieces.