Fly Me Friendly

Lots of fun had today down at the Grand Prix – I wound up crewing the domestics this morning (eg: normal passenger balloons) then came home and met up with the guys outside on the street. We packed into PUF (the big Range Rover we’ve been using as crew vehicle) and drove onto the track, setting up on field we had the balloon on previously (at turn 13).

Not long into the morning, a few of the pilots decided to come on site with us. Driving in with Van #1 (it had the other access sticker) they used the staff passes from the crew that didn’t come on site today. Security staff were just checking that people had access passes – they weren’t checking that the photos on the passes matched the faces of those holding the passes. Hmmmm….

We all hung out on site with the other guys taking walks here and there while I stayed with the vehicles and watched the helicopters come & go. Oh, there were cars out there too??? :)

On the lead up to the race, we had the Roulettes, the F18 and the 747 low pass until finally the cars hit the track. The race itself was uneventual and, afterwards, I took Marlon over to the track tower to meet the ATC team. From the top of the temporary tower I was able to get a lot of great photos of the helipads.

So much for my time at the Grand Prix – wish we could have had the F1 Racer balloon up on the race day, but c’est la vie…