Ride in the IMTS balloon during the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta (4K)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2024
- Around this time of year the skies of Albuquerque begin to get filled with hot air balloons. They come for the International Balloon Fiesta, which is apparently the largest ballooning event in the world. Tourists, locals, and professional balloonists come from all over to participate in the week-long event. Tourists and locals get to see billboard-size balloons flying around and lighting up (two big events are the "mass ascension" (where tons of balloons all take off at once) and the balloon glows which they call "glodios" (these are done at night with the balloons tethered to the ground, the light from the burners make the balloons glow and it's all pretty and stuff)). Professionals compete in various contests for the chance to win big prizes. I just-so-happen to have an "in" with some of those professionals, the crew and pilot who fly the IMTS balloon, so I got to go for a ride with them this year! :D
This flight was for a ballooning competition called a "ring toss" (I'm 90% sure that's what it was, me knowing what we were doing would not have changed anything). It's possible that the more official name for this competition is "Convergent Navigational Task". Basically, balloonists have to fly from outside the field and toss a ring out of the balloon at a target. The pilot who gets the ring the closest wins.
As I understand it, hot air balloons are basically at the mercy of the wind. That means they basically move in the direction that the wind is moving. Of course, the wind at one altitude may be traveling in a different direction than another altitude so ascending or descending may translate into changing direction as well. OK, not the most difficult concept to grasp, not exactly rocket science, but it is our earliest form of aviation! This is all well and good, except wind is generally invisible, so the pilot must rely on instinct and experience in order to get their balloon to go the direction they want.
As you can see, Pat wasn't the only one that thought taking off northwest of the Park was a good idea. You can see all the other balloons taking off around us... hell, we literally had to fly a few inches over one that was getting set up right next to us! Unfortunately, almost everyone was wrong though as I'm pretty sure only 5 balloons actually made it to the target that day (out of ~250 that attempted).
So, Pat didn't win a car that day (which was the prize, I believe) but we did have a longer flight that included a "splash and dash" (~9:40) and some more sightseeing. So cool!
Sorry about the video being disjointed and shaky. Sometimes when I get behind the camera I forget to "look at things with my eyes" (as I like to put it) so on this trip I tried to make sure not to be seeing everything through the tiny screen on the camera. In other words: I made sure to put the camera down. Consequently I only recorded short clips here and there. And, since I'm not a videographer, the stuff I did get... could have been better. I contemplated not posting the video, but since Pat kicked ass I thought I'd better upload what I had.
how far were you from the fiesta?
It looks like we started about 2 miles away.
Are you located in Albuquerque?
I sure am (had Taco Cabana for breakfast!).
Hirudin as am I!