Albuquerque Ballooning

dogman dan

dogman dan

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Fell off the face of the earth for a week, while ballooning at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. The first night away from home, the laptop hard drive crashes again. E-machines laptops are cheap, but last like it.

Since I have not been flying my balloon for the last three years, we have become crew sluts. Will crew for anybody, but actually we are now special shape balloon sluts. Spent the first part of the week crewing Darth Vader, and the second part crewing for a Japanese balloon called Ebisu. Lots more pix and video links will follow eventually. This year I graduated to pilot guide. The foregin balloonists like to take a local pilot that can point out the good and bad places to land, and smooth out things if a landowner packing a gun should appear after a landing. The great part is being the guide means flying in the balloon with them.

Here I am taking off in the Darth Vader Balloon. The pic hides the real pilot and balloon owner, so this makes it look like I'm flying it. 8)View attachment Dan in Darth resized.jpg
 
wow very cool.that looks to be fun and alotta work.
 
You needs yourself a GIANT Bloodhound shaped Balooooonz DoGMaN :p

Have fun mate ;)

KiM
 
When, (not if) I win 200 million in the lotto, I'll have many special shape balloons, which can cost up to 1/4 mil. I'm thinking starting with one that is a giant green chile pod, but a hound dog would be number two. They'd be cheap compared to the flying boat I'd be shopping for.

Meanwhile, it's nice to have what a millionare wants, so you can rub shoulders with one from time to time.

It's a ton of work flying the shapes. Ever try to put 700 pounds of nylon into a bag and carry it even a few feet? You do a lot of rolling the bag instead of carrying. At least with Darth there are tons of people, and more run up when you land. But we crewed Ebisu with about 8 people. I go to fiesta and do nothing but eat like a pig and slam alcohol for 9 days straight, and come home 5-10 pounds lighter every year.

Here's Ebisu, the Japanese balloon. One of the guys with that balloon spoke a few words of English. So it's thumbs up to say fly it, followed by pointing up or pointing down, and pointing at an empty field and nodding a lot to say land here.View attachment Ebisu resized.jpg

Here's fiesta field, taken by my wife as she flew off the last day. The crowd is tiny on the last day, but still quite a few. 200k people is normal daily attendance. One perk of crewing is a special line to park, and parking about 2 miles closer.View attachment 's flight resized.jpg
 
Here is a vid of Darth lifting off from the field. We were walking toward a car to chase him to where he landed that day, so I was far enough away for a good shot of him leaving.[youtube]W6y7ToPbbgw[/youtube]
 
When Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) toured Southern Cali, he played a show way out in the desert. They had a giant pig balloon and somehow it got loose during the show, it took a couple days to find the thing like 200 miles away. Must have been some sight seeing a flying pig go overhead in the middle of nowhere. 8)

Dogman,

I am very envious of you flying the Darth Vader balloon! That thing is badass! I imagine flying balloons is condusive to drinking, much like fishing. :lol:
 
etard said:
When Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) toured Southern Cali, he played a show way out in the desert. They had a giant pig balloon and somehow it got loose during the show, it took a couple days to find the thing like 200 miles away. Must have been some sight seeing a flying pig go overhead in the middle of nowhere. 8)
Click to expand...

HAHA i went to Pink Floyd Concert back in late 1980s when they came to OZ i was a HUGE Pink Floyd fan back then they had the pig here too, didnt get loose thogh, also had a flying bed come screaming on a cable above the crowd, the air was thick with the smell of weed people from 12 to 60 in the crowd
themz was the good ol days...

KiM
 
great shots Dogman. Now you'll have to sit and watch tv to loose all that weight. :lol:
That must have been a real thrill. I call one of my friends as I rode past his house to see if he was home and he answeed the phone and said he was at the ballon field in NM. What a small world.
Dan
 
DanD,, I actually lose weight after 9 days of eating like a pig and pounding tequila. But a great many do gain 10 pounds at the party. I get so amped up by it all that I burn calories like I'm windsurfing in 50 degree water. After the flight the pilots get together in groups of 5-10 balloons and put out a huge tailgate feast. I brought a grill and fed the whole Darth crew most of the days, others brought huge slabs of smoked salmon, buckets of shrimp, and of course oceans of booze. The big favorites are margaritas with pomegranate liqour added, and jello shots. And of course lots of champange and beer to rehydrate. I don't really drink much, but during fiesta alcohol is a food group. The pilots will drink less of course, but crew goes crazy for 9 days.

This goes on all day, or at least till 2:00 pm when they water the grass. On wednesday there is a margaritaville party of about 50 crews that gets even wilder. The Croatian crew brings a portable stripper pole, but nowdays the clothes stay on. Still fun though.

I'll see if I can find a pic of the flying pig. They used to have several flying piggy banks from Wells Fargo bank, but they wore them out. Now I think there is just the one. Tons of cool shapes these days. The family of bees is very cool, and the vid shows a bit of the new one I liked this year, a crab. I crewed the one shaped like the space shuttle one year, which is one of the bigger ones. 1000 pounds of fabric, and almost impossible to get the air out of at the end of the flight. It's about 150 feet tall.
 
etard said:
When Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) toured Southern Cali, he played a show way out in the desert. They had a giant pig balloon and somehow it got loose during the show, it took a couple days to find the thing like 200 miles away. Must have been some sight seeing a flying pig go overhead in the middle of nowhere. 8)

Dogman,

I am very envious of you flying the Darth Vader balloon! That thing is badass! I imagine flying balloons is condusive to drinking, much like fishing. :lol:
Click to expand...

and boating seems to go hand in hand but I'd imagine you would need your wits about you to land it safely or do they always drag on their sides?
a big flying pig proof that pigs can fly
 
A nice day and you can do stand up landings, about 5 mph wind and you start to drag a few feet landing, by 10 mph you are going to lay over and bounce around a lot. At that point, I like to be on the bottom of the pile with my passengers on my back. 1 I know where they are, and 2 they are keeping me in the basket where I need to be. Flip the pilot out of the basket, and the balloon, now 200 pounds lighter shoots back up. The passengers then get to learn to fly in the next 2 minuites. :shock: The single most common balloon accident is passengers getting popped out on a hard landing. I've grabbed a passenger and hauled em back in at least twice.

Its really freaky to have to choose a spot from the air, as you go by. That's where experience flying a certain area helps a ton. You can use what steering you have to go to a better area.
 
Here's one that shows the size of the dang thing, as people get close to try to put it down on the tarp, without putting any holes in it. [youtube]xxTYGilS1UE[/youtube]

And another, filming a flight in Darth for a few min. About 1000 feet above the fiesta field, catching the wind to the north, towards the open land in the vid. [youtube]gmWURB2a1IA[/youtube]
 
Here is some vid from the flight in Ebisu, the japanese balloon shaped like the god of commerce and buisness.[youtube]ins3JaA25Io[/youtube]
 
cool stuff, dogman!

I need to take a balloon ride someday, looks relaxing...
used to fly hangliders, the good part is that its noiseless, the bad part is that you are always worrying as you are constantly sinking hoping for that next thermal.


I also have a strange urge to try the parabounce :D
http://wackyboards.blogspot.com/2009/09/parabounce.html
 
Looks like alot of fun up in a balloon basket.
 
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