Fly Me Friendly

The other morning I was crewing hot air balloons out in the Yarra Valley. It was very foggy so the drive out was “interesting” and we spent a couple of hours waiting for it to lift. While it was very thick horizontally, it was only about 150′ high so Ronnie (the pilot) thought it would burn off after sunrise.

We gave the passengers their breakfast while we waited (usually they eat after the flight) and it paid off as by 8am the fog was breaking up and sinking further into the valley. By 8:30 it was sufficiently dispersed to make for a great flight so we piled the passengers into the vehicles and went to the launch site. Today was very close – actually just across the road from the winery restaurant in a clear patch near some vines. Throw in a bunch of kangaroos coming over to investigate and the passengers were ecstatic.

 

As usual we were too busy getting the balloon inflated & launched then packing up and starting the chase for me to get any pictures, which was a shame as there were some spots I would have loved to have been able to pull over and take a few. We stopped in Yarra Glen to get a drink and I managed to get a couple of shots there.

The rest of the flight went well and we retrieved them from a dairy farm’s field. Fortunately no cows had been in the field for a while so there wasn’t much need to “mind where you step” :)

 

On the way home after cleaning, refueling and packing up, I noticed a small aircraft with an interesting colour scheme doing circuits at Lilydale airport (YLIL). Given the road I use goes right past the threshold of RWY36, I decided to stop and get some photos. So, do you think it was worth it? :)

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Jump aircraft about to land"][/caption]I’d seen “Grumpy” once before at the Lilydale Airport Airshow late last year so it was great to get a flying photo (especially one like this :).

While I was waiting for another circuit and photo opportunity, a Piper Warrior taxied out, did a run up and then entered the runway & took off. Not long after I watched a pair of parachutes land (looked like two tandem jumps) and, of course, a few minutes later their jump plane landed. By then “Grumpy” had finished flying and things were quiet, so I got in the car and headed home.

So, is Lilydale airport always this good around 1pm on a beautiful Friday afternoon or did I just pick the right 10 minutes to take a few photos? The sun wasn’t in a perfect spot for some of the photos, but it certainly seemed to be the right place, right time and right incentive to stop and watch a great aircraft – gotta love it!

I’ve uploaded the photos I took while crewing and the photos from Lilydale in my photo gallery.

We’re sitting here late at night watching the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta’s “mass ascention” streaming live on the ‘net. Hundreds of balloons launching and flying together, a sky packed with balloons. Amazing. You can see it via KOAT’s live feed running at 7am to 9am local time on the weekend mornings of the fiesta.

The special shapes this year are amazing. There’s been a giant cow, Darth Vader’s head, a wagon, a cathedral, strawberry, lady bug, American eagle, the two honey bees (often seen at the festival in Canberra) and many more. It’s a shame we never got to take the F1 Racer over there – it would have looked great.

The balloons were right up next to each other on the launch field – much closer than when we were launching the commercial flights here in Melbourne. They’re also letting the public right up to the balloons as they inflate, which freaks me out somewhat.

During their flight a number of the balloons are dropping down over the river and dragging their baskets through the water. Not sure if today’s weather will allow a box-flight as I’ve turned off the sound (TV presenters are annoying at best during these sorts of events).

NOTE: A box-flight is where you take off and fly away from the launch field with the wind then go up higher and encounter a reciprocal wind that brings you back towards the launch field. Very rare in ballooning but rather common during this time of year at Albuquerque. Usually the wind is blowing in different directions at different altitudes but generally at smaller angles, not 180 degrees opposite.

You know what? Stuff the Olympics – this is something worth staying up for and watching live :)

While heading to work this morning, walking off the escalators out of the subway at Melbourne Central, I stumbled on Pete Wright, Paul Gibbs and the Picture This gang with an entire hot air balloon inflated inside the atrium area of the shopping center. Not just any balloon either, this was the new Carlton & United Breweries special shape balloon that looks like a giant glass of beer. Today was the launch of the new campaign and the balloon. It had been test flown out in the country but hadn’t been seen in a city until today.

I was focusing on the basket, burners and the team and didn’t even look up until Pete asked me what I thought of the new shape. Oh wow. Very spectacular and it’ll look great from a distance (not to say it doesn’t look good up close either, just that from a distance there’ll be no doubting what this one is).

The crew had a very tricky time inflating the balloon inside the atrium – there was only just enough space for it to stand up and required guys on the upstairs balconies with ropes to guide it. Quite the feat and the guys were justifiably proud of what they’d achieved.

It was going to be a long day for the team as they had to inflate it before the center opened and keep it up all day until close when they could take it down. Naturally, they were working in shifts to ensure no one got too worn out.

When I was crewing with Balloon Sunrise, I was working on the Formula 1 Racer Balloon (pdf) which took 5 of us over an hour to pull down, flatten out, pack up and put in the back of the trailer. It was also a real pig to fly with the wheels filling with cold air and slowing it down when changing altitude. This “beer glass” shape will be easy to pack up (a long tube with a vent at the top) and fly, so the guys at Picture This will have a blast touring it and flying it around for Carlton & United.

After hanging around for a chat, I headed into the office. Wish I’d had my camera with me.

Updated – 2008-09-04: One of the local papers had an article & photo of the balloon on its first flight over Melbourne.

As of today I’m back crewing the balloons again – yay – it’s good to be back although my “day job” doesn’t let me do the crewing more than once or twice a month. At least it gets me out of an office and onto the field once again, working with aviation, meeting people and getting some exercise (sorely needed, I can assure you! :) Of course, the extra $$$ help too…

This morning’s session certainly proved for me that 6 months off crewing has left me a little rusty, even after the training session the other week. A few things have changed in the way we rig the balloons and between that plus generally getting back into the swing of it, I wound up forgetting to get the fan off the trailer. Nick (my pilot today) got everything ready to start the cold inflation, including the guys holding the mouth of the balloon open, and went to start the fan – ooops. Of course, I’m up the other end getting the velcros in when I hear the ramp drop on the trailer and realise “oh shit!” :)

Not the worst thing but still embarassing.

Oh well – a fun session and it’s great to be back doing it again.

As of today I now hold a First Aid level 1 certificate – woo hoo – I know how to do CPR and such. Go me :)

Training was held for Balloon Sunrise pilots & crew out at the Balgownie Estate winery in Yarra Valley. Karen & Robyn were our trainers and it was a lot of fun. Things are certainly easier than when I first got basic training back at school. Apparently they found people were taking too long to sort things out and not getting into the important bit (CPR) soon enough. Then there were also the legal aspects where people were paranoid about getting their asses sued if they tried to help, etc.

So, now it’s easier – yay :)

It all comes down to a handy mnemonic:

Danger
Response
Airway
Breathing
CPR
Defib

Some things haven’t changed, including the recovery position and using the Little Annie practice doll thingos – although now you get to use a funky face thingo that fits on and there’s one per person – gotta watch out for those body fluids, ya know :)

All up, a lot of fun and educational – ya can’t beat that!

This weekend has been a busy aviation weekend, that’s for sure. On Saturday, I spent the afternoon and evening attending the VATSIM Oceania 2007 Convention out at the Holiday Inn at Melbourne airport. The conference is all about operating flight simulators, ATC simulators and the whole “online experience” that people get these days. Amazing stuff.

I went out there with Carlo as a representative of his Flight Experience operation here in Melbourne. He was presenting there so we caught a few others in the agenda and then stayed for the dinner. Between the end of the conference and the dinner, we shot over to the airport for a couple of drinks while watching the aircraft come & go. While there we caught Virgin’s new Embraer E-170 jet come in and park – it’s doing flights around the country to train pilots, cabin crew and ground staff on the specifics of its operation.

On the Sunday I went out the Yarra Valley for a day’s crew training with Balloon Sunrise. We spent some time reviewing the crew procedures manual, then had some pizza for lunch and ended up taking a balloon out to a field so we could rig it, inflate it and deflate it, all without the pressure of commercial operations. The idea was that we could take the time to discuss what was being done at each step and review important issues, etc. Much easier to do in the daylight without passengers and with heaps of time to review, etc. It’s an idea that Rob’s been trying to get happening for a while now and it really did work well.

Of course, we wound up attracting a few people who thought we were going to launch. Not likely – it was getting rather unpredictable with winds puffing all around the place. The joys of a mid-afternoon inflate :)

After lunch and while the others were taking the balloon out to set it up, Peter took Marlon & I out for a flight in the company’s new helicopter. They’ve set up Sunrise Helicopters and are running a Robinson R44 (Clipper II) model based off the lawn in front of Balgownie Estate. NEAT!!! A quick 10 minute ride (sadly with me in the back – DOH! :) was a lot of fun then it was back to the training session.

So, quite the aviation weekend. Now, if only I could have added in some flying time where I was at the controls, well, then it would have been almost a perfect weekend :)

Today saw the inaugural Balloon Sunrise vs Global Ballooning go kart challenge held at Ace Karts in Sunshine. The day began with rain, leading us to think we’d be down graded from Super Karts (9HP) to Modified Karts (6.5HP) as the track is open air. Fortunately, the skies were clearing, the rain had stopped and the track was dry when it came to our race.

Global had 9 racers and Balloon Sunrise managed to get 6 to the track (we had a couple of cancellations due to family issues). After completing our briefing, we donned helmets and jumped in our karts, heading out for a 10 minute qualifying period, then got arranged onto the starting grid based on our best laps. We were supposed to do a 15 minute race but there was a glitch in the computer so we got stopped, re-aligned on the grid in our present race order and then given a final 10 lap race, giving us about 18 minutes racing all up.

I spun out during qualification as I hit the brakes at the wrong time in a corner. I also spun out during the second 10 lap race as a bunch of us tried to get around one of the corners (that one got VERY messy :) Over all, I came 7th out of 15 which wasn’t bad, but was one place off gaining team points :(

We had agreed at the start that the first 6 drivers would win team points where first driver gets 10 points, second 8 and through to 5th getting 2 and 6th getting 1 point.

The end results after all the racing were:

Position	Driver	Team	Score	Team Points
1st	Barry	Global Ballooning	30	10
2nd	Nick	Balloon Sunrise	28	8
3rd	Rob	Balloon Sunrise	24	6
4th	Luke	Global Ballooning	24	4
5th	Ron	Balloon Sunrise	20	2
6th	Brian	Global Ballooning	19	1
7th	Grant	Balloon Sunrise	17
8th	Darren	Balloon Sunrise	13
9th	Les	Global Ballooning	12
10th	Peter	Global Ballooning	11
11th	Chris	Global Ballooning	11
12th	Sanjay	Global Ballooning	9
13th	Marlon	Balloon Sunrise	9
14th	Kiff	Global Ballooning	7
15th	David	Global Ballooning	1

Position	Team	Points
1st	Balloon Sunrise	16
2nd	Global Ballooning	15

So, a close race with lots of spins and hard racing. Lots of fun was had by all and we’ll be getting a trophy that the winning team can keep in their office for a year :)

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…

“Well, we may not be at the GP with the F1 Racer balloon but at least I got to fly over the track. The fine folks at Professional Helicopter Services are running the helipad and offering joy flights – 5 minutes for $80. I went up yesterday with Andy as our pilot – I asked for (and received) the front seat – not cheap but it was a fun little flight :)

Definitely time to think about saving for my rotary license :)

Well, the AGP have not been able to come up with a space where we can set up the F1 Racer balloon so they’ve pulled the plug on Day 4 for us. A few of us are going down there anyhow but we’ll only have a few chairs and a small eskie of food & drink. Not quite the same without all the vehicles and the BBQ, oh well…

Maybe tomorrow I can go for a walk and get some shots of the grid girls and some of the other helicopters that are there :)