Re: up, up and away!
we were sitting at home 1 summer weekend, and heard a hellova commotion. looked out to see a balloon land in the backyard of my neighbor across the street, who was out of town
<br /><br />kids from all over the subdv ran over behind the house, so we went over to check it out too. it turned out to be a balloon 'racer' giving a training session to a woman. the guy said he would take a volunteer
if they agreed to help pack & load the balloon back into the chase vehicle when done (@ 2hrs). <br /><br />i went, since everyone else yelling to ride suddenly got lockjaw when put on the spot!
it was incredible. but yes, those burners were loud, which is what we'd heard inside our home. once we got up & stopped the burners, it was like floating on the ocean with no one around for miles, perfectly quiet, calm & peaceful. <br /><br />one unusual thing i noticed, i could hear the people on the ground speaking normally, but we had to yell for them to hear us, the way the sound traveled. well, until we really got some altitude. i think we cruised @ 1500-2000ft. <br /><br />the guy got the trainee to go up/dwn to find the shifts in wind direction to move us in the desired path. and he got her to practice sitting down on a treetop perfectly still and then moving off. also, we she would drop down and bump the ground and go back up. we ended up putting down on the median of a road. it was killer! seems like that balloon fabric weighed twice as much as the basket, like maybe 400lbs?
