Albuquerque Balloon Week 2017

[JimLev]

Lots of pics from today, see link.
On Monday I'm going up in one of the balloons.

https://1drv.ms/f/s!ApkTIzHhyMd5pFLbn-D84_WY35qp

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[jp5Touring]

Very cool,enjoy your flight Jim. My ex employer (man that sounds nice to say) used to have a hanger at Battle Creek Airport and they would throw a party
for employees and friends to watch the Ballon Championships. Something you need to see in person for sure.

[dannyzabolotny]

That's awesome. Reminds me of a balloon festival I went to as a kid in Long Island.

[JimLev]

You lived in L.I., where?

[dannyzabolotny]

You lived in L.I., where?

I lived in Brooklyn, actually. My parents wanted to be there for the Russian community, but on weekends we often ventured out to various parts of Long Island. Kinda the opposite of most people who lived in Long Island and went to NYC on weekends. My parents both work in Long Island to this day, actually. My mom works in Mineola and my dad is a wedding photographer so he works all over the island. I've spent tons of time in Mineola, Manhasset, Hempstead, Malverne, Farmingdale, Carle Place, Woodbury, etc. Crazy how I still remember so many of those little town names.

[JimLev]

When I live in MA I visited customers in Hicksville, Westbury, Deer Park, etc. Got a BMW buddy that lives in Glen Cove.

Back to the Balloon ride yesterday. I'll have to do it again, great fun.
This is the one I went up in along with about 8 others in the same basket.
There are 2 fans that initially blow air into the 300,000 cu ft envelope to inflate it, then the burners are fired up to do the rest.
The flight lasted 70 min, we traveled 13 miles.

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Downtown ABQ
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[dannyzabolotny]

Dumb question but is there any way to make the balloons change direction? Or do they kinda just go where they want to go?

[JimLev]

The different air currents at different altitudes can assist you to kind of go in the direstion you want to. It doesn't alway workout especially if there is no wind. Here in ABQ there is a N to S and S to N wind direction at different altitudes so you can use that to sometimes get back maybe close to where you started from.
The balloon has some side trap doors that can be opened which can be used to turn the balloon.
All balloons have a chase team so the pilot can communicate with them. In our case we weren't going back to the start. The chase team scouted out ground locations the pilot radioed to them.
We landed in an old deserted factory/farm/warehouse lot.

[Uturn540]

Glad to see you enjoyed it. I made the comment on another post about mine being a Sandia BMW because I knew it would get your attention. Actually bought three BMW's from them when I lived there and almost cost them their dealership(another story). Worked at Paseo Del Norte and Louisiana for over twenty years, but lived on the west side (Sante Fe Village). Seeing the Balloon Fiesta was nice but the traffic was something else. One plus is that we would occasionally get VIP passes.