This is the first picture I took the morning I went up. This is part of the chase crew filling the balloon with a big fan. Once it's filled, the pilot blasts it with the fire and the balloon rises to it's vertical position. After my trip the pilot asked me if I wanted to be on the chase crew for the weekend and I ended up doing this for the next two days.
After the balloon was about two inches off the ground I was at ease because you get the feeling right away how the thing floats. Below is a view of where we started. We got to this height pretty fast. But first the pilot dropped down to pick up a little kid that was with his parents and took him up for a few minutes and brought him back down. It was a cool thing to do and later that weekend I found out that he got in major sh!t for it.
As I was looking at the giant octopus balloon in this photo, the chase crew following in a van on the ground started yelling at the pilot over the radio. "GO UP, GO UP!!" I soon realized as I turned around what was happening.
Since the balloons are so large a pilot can't tell if there is a balloon above him or not. The pilot of this balloon didn't see us and was rising towards us.
Luckily our balloon got some wind that pushed us over just enough. We did end up bumping into this guy. It freaked me out a little, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes.....really, really, slowly.
After this little mishap the two pilots dipped down by this river to to discuss what just happened.
Some of my favorite random pictures.
We almost landed in this cow field but the pilot thought it was such a perfect morning for a flight we just kept on going. You should have seen these cows run when they saw the balloon coming down.
You might have noticed that there are no shots taken from a really high altitude. The reason for this is because we had an 85 year old woman on board with us. She was a cool old lady but couldn't go really high because her brain might have exploded or something.
Although we stayed low it was an awesome trip to take. And after every flight the pilot cracks open a bottle or two. Being on the chase crew meant I had a buzz for the whole weekend!
6 comments:
Awesome pictures Rick! Wish I wasn't so scared of heights, it looks so fun. I'd probably behave like that old woman! :)
It's a funny thing that happens once you're up. If you keep looking at the horizon you don't even notice how high you actually are. I would look straight down really fast and get vertigo. Freaky stuff.
I would love to do a hot air balloon ride sometimes...would be so neat to be up hi and free....strange you will go in a hot air balloon but not a plane though :)
The thought of getting on a plane scares the living crap out of me. I can't tell the pilot to pull over if I want to get off.
Wow Ricky, I love that last picture, it's something right out of a magazine. They all are but that one's my fave.
I'm not sure if my morbid humour should find the lil' ol' lady's head blowing up funny or the fact of your slow motion impending death the funniest, sorry.
It's like something out of a cartoon with the really long, neverending, "Noooo-ooooooooo-oooooooooooooo!" Then, "Boink," as the balloons bounce off of each other, heehee!
Ha Ha! That's exactly what I was going for with that joke!!
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