Dangerous launch?

Started by ♠SARKID♠, December 14, 2007, 09:52:54 PM

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♠SARKID♠

I'm no balooner, so I've got to ask.  Isn't this kind of launch, right around trees, lightpoles, and buildings dangerous?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRaZGAl9qLQ

NIN

Ah, something I have experience with.

Overall, not really.  (Although, when they did show his take off from the air, that one tall light standard to the left looked mighty close..)

First, balloonists don't fly when there is a lot of wind.  Can you hear the wind in your ears?  Yeah, that's too much. < 5mph is pretty standard.  IOW, you're not going to clear the ground and go immediately sideways into an obstacle.

Second, when the wind is light like that, and you get your balloon light, just a couple good hits on the burner and you're going up a lot faster than you're going horizontally.   You're gonna clear all the major obstacles pretty quickly.

Third, that balloonist probably put up whats called a "pilot balloon" which is a helium-filled kids balloon to gauge the wind direction and speed from ground level up to several hundred feet.  You can see just what direction you're going to go initially,  if there is an upper-level layer that's going a different direction just a few hundred feet off the ground, etc.   My bet is that guy did his pi-ball, decided where to setup, and then the wind shifted a little bit on him (hence the "awfully close light standard").

I crew for a guy, but we fly in the countryside.  None of our take off areas are that congested.  That looked like some kind of a promotional deal.  Our landings, OTOH, are where they're gonna be, and sometimes you don't get to pick how nice your landing area is, or the wind speed at landing.   For example, my pilot snagged his balloon on two trees during a landing on one of his last flights this year.  Nothing *major*, but he had to replace two panels (his girlfriend runs a repair station, and he's working on getting getting his "Balloon A&P".. training!). It was either that or wind up over some really unforgiving terrain with about 3/4 of one tank of propane remaining.  Not good. When that propane runs out, you're cooked (pun intended), so its better to take a controlled but not perfect landing earlier than risk running out of fuel and having to "crash land" where you don't want.

That was a neat video.  Looked like an interesting place to launch from.

Darin Ninness, Col, CAP
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♠SARKID♠

Very cool thanks for the enlightenment!