hotairballoonist

I hope you are well. Well, here we are at the end of what has to be a year for the record books. My 2020 started off with a Hemorrhagic stroke and spent 5 days in a coma and nearly a month in the hospital. The stroke has ended a 45 year career of flying balloons and removed my ability to earn a living for my family. Toss in the Covid-19 issue and this whole year has been a mess for nearly everyone! With my current medical issues the Covid-19 pandemic has had the Thompson Compound locked down. My Doctors have warned that if I contract the virus it could be a very bad thing. A huge Thank you goes out to my mother and father, who made the trip to the hospital nearly every day for a month! 2020 also saw our elected officials pass a 1.3 trillion stimulus package yet only a small portion of it goes to actual Americans. Do the math! 1.3 trillion, divided by 325 million American’s equals $4,000.00 per American, yet we will be lucky to get even half of that. Never mind the debit created for our kids to pay back. I have also been banned from Facebook. I am not entirely sure why, but I do have suspicions. Each time I try to log in I get the following message. We Received Your Information If we still find that you're not old enough to be on Facebook, your account will remain disabled. This is because your account doesn't follow our Terms of Service. We're always looking out for the security of people on Facebook, so until then you can't use your account. So either my account has been hacked or I have been intentionally blocked. I am sure you have heard the rumors that Facebook, Twitter, Google and other information sources have been censoring the information you receive. I am now a believer in the censorship of these big media platforms. 2020, The balloon world lost a true pioneer in Don Piccard. I will be writing an article about my first encounter with him in 1977 at the Albuquerque event. Yes 2020 will be a year that will be talked about long after most of us are gone. Since I can no longer fly I have been busy writing articles for the HotAirBalloonist.com website. I have also been selling off equipment and soon will have some nice Classic Limited Stretch baskets available for purchase. I have several sets of Zone 5 double burners too. There are many items still available in the Equipment 4Sale section on the HAB site. Remember anyone can post items for sale on HAB! I have also sent a very nice presentation to Shawn Gano the developer of the HotAir.app. http://www.hotairballoonist.com/Video/ShawnHOTAIR.mp4 Many of you may already know that the program Motion X is no longer available. I personally used the program very heavily for pre-flight planning. Here in the Central Florida area we deal with some very large swamps. Areas where if you get out over them and cannot get to the other side you will have a very wet, uncomfortable and potentially dangerous hike out and a helicopter will be required to get your equipment back. So the measuring tool on that app was a fantastic help. You could take your PiBal readings and then move your launch and landing circles around to find the best fit for direction and speed prior to your flight. This would give you a huge advantage pre-flight, to help you be sure you could make your landing target. Shawn has agreed to build a pre-Flight planning tool into the HotAir.app when he has the time to do so. There are some other issues he is currently working on but do not be surprised if a new tool is available in the next update. My father Jim Thompson has been hard at work creating biographies for the Hall of Fame “Notable Balloonist Biographical Information” category. There are hundreds of biographies you can read about balloonists all over the country. You may be surprised with some of the fantastic history of the people who make up our sport. This section of the Hotairballoonist.com site is open to the public and you do not need to log in to view the biographies so we encourage you to take a look around the category! There are also many files on the Members Side of the site. Log in and look around that part of the site when you have time. There is a Password Recovery system on the site if you have forgotten your password. If all else fails send me an email at Info@HotAirBalloonist.com and I will help you reset the password to anything you like. Finding new stuff is also easy to do on the site. We have a video tutorial on how to sort files in any of the hundreds of categories. Have a look at the “What’s New” video tutorial. I have posted a short article in the “Tips & Tricks” category under the “Better Inflations” sub-cat. The article is called Where did your Eyelashes go? I would love to hear comments from pilots about this article. You may post replies on the site and only logged in members will see your comments. Yes you must be logged in to view this topic. We have some banner advertising spots available so if you have products you would like to advertise to balloonists we would love to have you advertise them on the HAB site. Here is a link where you can go to select a banner advertising program for your products. Do you need flying area maps? Do you need your website refreshed or an entirely new site? I am available. Classic Online Services is my web development site. Have a look! Last thought for this year. I will not be flying commercially any longer. As hard as that is for me to do, I will not be out of ballooning. I will be spending more time on the HotAirBalloonist.com site trying my best to share ideas, experiences, tips & tricks and anything I can to help promote the sport. As I have said on more than one occasion, with 7,000 hours and nearly a half century of HAB adventures I have much to share. All I ask is that YOU help me by supporting the HotAirBalloonist.com site. Start your 2021 off with a paid membership and participate! Share your experiences, ask questions and help me promote our world. We have hundreds of articles and hundreds of files and dozens and dozens of video tutorials to help you get more out of the site, so dive in! I sincerely hope that each one of you have a wonderful & safe year. I hope yours is a prosperous 2021. Thank you for all you do for the balloon world. Jeff A Thompson

We just wanted to send out a quick note. Things are hard all over with the current situation here in the US and across the world. We wanted to take a moment to say our condolences and thoughts go out to those who have lost a loved one this year. We also wish to ponder, and honestly think about all we are thankful for at this time. Even in tough times, my father always used to say there is someone out there in a worse situation. I have always remembered those words. It is this time of year when those words are especially poignant. Please have a safe and wonderful thanksgiving with those you love and think about all the other wonderful people in your life. Thank you for all you do for the balloon world to you! Jeff A Thompson & the HAB family

Need your help. We have gone down our list of almost 200 balloon events. Sadly we have only been able to identify about 60 events for the 2021 season. When you have a moment, please visit HotAirBalloonist.com. Have a look at either the North American Balloon events calendar or look on our member map for an event in your area. Here is a link to the video tutorial on how to view “Events Only” on the member map to make it easier to view the events we have listed. https://hotairballoonist.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/1227-events-on-the-member-map/ If you are involved in a balloon event please take a moment to watch the video then go to the member map and check to see if we have your event listed. If we are missing your event, please send us an email at Info@HotAirBalloonist.com and give us the website and any other details you believe we could use so we can have an up to date calendar for 2021. MAP FILES Do you have map files? We are compiling files from as many balloon events as we can. We already have many files for pilots in our Download Center. These files can be downloaded for use in several Navigation applications like HOTAIR, Hot Air Balloon Pilot (Android) Two Nav, Back Country and more. We have KML, KMZ, GPX files and more. If you have map files for your event, or flying area, we would like to have them available in our download center. Our goal is to have map files for all balloon events and eventually have maps for flying areas all around the country. This would allow out of town pilots to be able to fly in your area without creating issues for the local pilots. Keep in mind that these files can be protected by using our member permissions, so others cannot see or use them. If you have a map file for a specific flying area, we can also create an online club for your area. By creating an online club YOU can invite only your local pilots to be members in your club. This will make your files even more protected since you can choose exactly the members whom have access. There are two “Video Tutorials” about how to make a club for your area. Start a club (Part One) Start a club (Part Two) In addition to these fantastic features we can also incorporate the “FOLLOW FEATURE”. This means that anytime a change has been made to your map file or a new file is uploaded all the members who “Follow” that file will be sent an instant email notifying them that there is a new file available. This is a wonderful way to keep everyone in your area up to date with the Green Zones, Red Zones, Yellow and more. Here is another great “HOW TO” video tutorial about the use of map files. https://hotairballoonist.com/forum/index.php?/files/file/1197-hotairapp-map-files/ Map Files (more) Recently we had a request, that once we started to think about it made a bunch of sense. We were asked if we could separate the different maps for a flying area. So, we created separate files for maps. We created a PZ map with 3D Red Zones and Yellow zones on one map. We created Green Zones on another map. We created Targets in another map. We created a Marker map with colored pins that you could tap on and view information about that Red Zone and we created another overlay of pins for the Green Zones that include information like Landowner, Phone, Special instructions, Gate Codes and more. By doing this we were allowing the pilots and crews to select the specific map or overlay they wanted to view for the area. Now I will admit that when you download all these maps and turn them all on the map looks very cluttered, however, in most cases when you are flying your map is zoomed in to about a 25 square mile area. This unclutters the map greatly! We have also sent an email to Shawn Gano the developer of the HOTAIR.app and asked if we could incorporate colored pins into the KML overlay. Over the next few days we will be making either a video tutorial or a power point slide show about all of this. Safety Seminars We realize that with the Covid-19 issue we are all suffering from a change in our lives. We believe this is a great time to have a safety seminar. The question is HOW? I will be starting a topic in the “Walkie Talkie” forum inside the “Hot Topics” category. Feel free to log in and get involved with this important topic. Remember the “Hot Topics” category is a private Members Only category! You must be logged in to view and participate. If you are having a Safety Seminar sometime this winter, please send us the details about your seminar. Better yet use our Safety Seminar form for an easy way to send us information. Go to this link. We have created a simple form you can fill out in a very short time that will provide us with information we will use to post the event on the HAB calendar and on the Member Map. Support the site! As always we want to thank our paid members who keep this site alive. Members have many useful features on the site and we are adding more all the time. One of the greatest features is that YOU the member can participate. YOU can create new topics, add an item for sale, advertise your services, participate in a chat room and so much more. BUT we need both new members and current member’s to create a paid account. We currently have more than 50 video tutorials about how to use the site. One of them is about getting a membership. In less than two minutes you can purchase a membership online. Check out this Video Tutorial. Thank you all for your support and participation. Please be safe this year for the holidays and remember we all have many things to be thankful for. Jeff A Thompson.

It’s been a while.. I have been busy with Dr. appointments, scans, blood tests and more. I have been getting my exercise doing projects around the house, working on vehicles and accomplishing things I have wanted to do for a long time. My rehab has been going very nicely and I wish to say thank you to so many who have been checking in with me regularly for updates. There have been a few issues with my recovery but I am still one of the very lucky ones to survive the stroke. Daily I am able to do more and more and normal is slowly slipping its way back into my life. Emails Our email system suffered a glitch and was down. We have a mass mailer installed on our server. With over 1000 members on the site, when we send out a newsletter our server sends out hundreds of emails in a matter of seconds. The mass mailer also stays busy with the Follow Feature on the site sending out email notifications for calendar events, club newsletters, user posts and replies and more. We are glad to say the mass mailer system has been fixed and is working well. Video Tutorials We have been upgrading our Video Tutorials. We originally created many tutorials using Flash. The Flash software system has been outdated by most browsers. We have been adding NEW video tutorials made with the MP4 format. The MP4 format allows them to play on almost any device. Stop in and have a look at some of the new videos. If you have features of the site or something you need more information about send us a note at Info@HotAirBalloonist.com and we will create a Video Tutorial for you. Remember we are posting new videos all the time. There is a section on the main page that shows the latest (NEW) video tutorials. Have a look! Speaking of Video Tutorials We have a couple of new video tutorials that are worth the few minutes to watch. “Starting a topic” This video shows you how you can start a topic on HotAirBalloonist.com. “HotAir.app map files” This video shows how easy it is to download map files for use with the HotAir.app. Lastly and most important is “The Follow Feature” This feature is one of the best on the entire site. The follow feature allows YOU the member to choose exactly what you want to know about. Taylor the amount of email interaction by the specific topic or event you want to know about. Turn OFF the items you no longer want to follow. If you take the time to watch any of these videos, please watch “The Follow Feature” The Twitter Promote. We have some new software on the site now. We allow members to promote their posts on our twitter account. Say for example you post an item for sale in our Equipment 4Sale section. With one click you can post that item on the HotAirBalloonist.com twitter account. First thing we would like you to do is follow the #HABalloonist on twitter and next if you have an item for sale or you post a topic in any category hit the Twitter Promote button up near the Follow Button. Don’t forget to follow your post too! MAPS One of the items we have talked about in the past has been Map Files. We have an entire section of our Download Center dedicated just for flying maps. If you have map files for your flying area and you would like to submit them so that others can share them please send them to us. We will take any files you may have. GPX, KMZ, KML and more. We can also keep your file private using membership levels and even creating a private club for your area. With a private club, YOU choose who can have access to your files. YES there is a video tutorial on the Club Feature on HAB. As always, thanks for taking the time to read and… Thank you for all you do for the balloon world. Be Safe, Have Fun and Stay Healthy. Jeff A Thompson

Normal is creeping in… My recovery has been going extremely well. I had an MRI on my brain two weeks ago. The results were good. I am still showing residual blood on the brain but it is slowly being absorbed. Two days after the online visit with my primary we get a call from the imaging hospital asking me to come back for another MRI. Apparently they had spotted something they wanted another look at. My wife has looked at the results from the second MRI, she said there was nothing alarming in the results but we have another tele-visit appointment with my primary to get his opinion. I am still on a boat load of meds and take my vitals three times a day; however, I have been making great progress. Working out in the shop and doing all sorts of projects around the house, yard work and web work has not only kept me busy but added to the speed of my recovery. I have lost a bunch of weight. When I had my stroke in February I was in size 44 jeans. I have gone down a size nearly every six weeks since coming home. I am now wearing 38’ jeans and doing so comfortably. I have had no headaches in several weeks and the Dizzy Days are becoming fewer as well. I still miss flying each day but I am no longer waking up before dawn in a panic, wondering what balloon and how many passengers and who is today’s ground crew. (That was my normal for several weeks after getting home). I was able to make a FLIGHT. https://www.thompsonaire.com/video/July4thFlight.mp4 Thank you to one of our wonderful local pilots (Kenny Shuemate) who asked me if I wanted to go for a flight. He said he had a 140 with almost no hours on it and wondered if I wanted to go out for a flight. I was nearly in tears while talking to him on the phone. He said bring anyone you want! I know, many of you taking a balloon flight is a normal thing and for some of you lucky pilots out there it is nearly a daily occurrence. For me, I fully believed it would just be a memory and I would never get to fly again. When Kenny made the invitation I had been feeling pretty good for a few weeks so I took him up on his offer. I invited both my mother and father to join in and one of my old ground team had heard about it on Facebook and offered to come out and be our ground crew. Kenny said you may inflate if you want. I jumped right in and poor Kenny never got to touch the burner the entire flight. For me every second was a thrill but one of the highlights I will never forget is my father looking at me and saying “You sure have not lost your touch” Thank you Kenny Shuemate! TWITTER, I know there are some of you out there that do the Twitter thing. We have now installed a Twitter Promotion software on the HotAirBalloonist.com website. When you start a topic on the site you will have the option to also post that same topic to Twitter. Remember this is for logged in members of the site. But next time you start a topic on the site in ANY category, up at the top of your post where the “Follow” button is you will see the Twitter promote button. For those of you who want to follow us on Twitter just go to #HABalloonist on Twitter. Ballooning in the NEWS There are three locations on the HotAirBalloonist.com website where we have installed internet scrubbers. The scrubbers scour the internet looking for stories that have anything to do with ballooning. There is one on our front (Forums) page. On the right “Side Bar” section of the page. You would be embarrassed how many times the word Emergency appears on that news feed. There is also an entire page of news items. Under the Navigation heading “Current News” The page of news is called Ballooning in the News. This is an entire page of news items and the scrubber on this page has a slightly different set of searching parameters so you may find balloon news here that you would not find on the front “Forums” page. The third and final scrubber is located on the “Articles and News” page. This scrubber is located on the right “Side Bar” and this scrubber has yet another set of parameters that looks for news primarily about balloon events. During these difficult times many events are being canceled or postponed. This scrubber is a great one for news about balloon events all over the country. START A CLUB Remember there are no additional fees to start a balloon club on HotAirBalloonist.com You can start a club for the pilots who fly in your area and have your own Topics area, Download Center, Calendar, Photo Gallery, Member Map and even your own Chat room if you wish. Only your members can have access to your club area. You can even create your own newsletter to send out to your club members with a single click of a mouse. Our email server is super powerful. We send out nearly 1,000 emails in less than a minute! Of course if you need any help I am happy to assist getting you set up. WebWork Seems now that I am not flying full time I have time for other things. If you have a website that needs work or even rebuilt let me know. If your site is a balloon ride site I know a guy J who knows quite a bit about ballooning and can make a great site for you! All kidding aside, if you need any assistance on your site I am more than happy to become your web guy. Here are a few sites you can look at that I have set up. Appliancerepairoffourcorners.com, JodisSkiSchool.com, ThompsonAire.com, Ginathompsonphotography.com, HotAirBalloonist.com, DesiredDreamsBathBombs.com, WrappedUSA.com, Avaschickenchronicles.com just to name a few. I would love to help you with your needs. As my father would say, “It keeps you out of the bars”. Thank you all who take the time to read my newsletters. Please be safe, have fun and stay healthy. Thank you for all you do for the world of ballooning. OH!!! I almost forgot! We have more of our famous Balloon Masks in stock. Our supplier has told us that this may be the last of that fabric available so if you want one get it right away! Jeff A Thompson.

Some of you are getting this newsletter for the first time. We hope you enjoy our email. Our newsletter is designed to help you get more out of your membership to the HotAirBalloonist.com site and keep you informed what we are working on. Each newsletter also includes explanations on how parts of the HotAirBalloonist.com site works and to inform you about sections of the site you may not even know exists. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read our information. UPDATE As many of you know I suffered a hemorrhagic stroke in late February. We just had our first follow up with the neurologist to get the results of my MRI and CT scan. They are still showing some blood on the brain but it is clearing. I have had some issues with dizziness and some light headed-ness. I have lost about 40 pounds and gone from a 44 waist to a 40 and still shrinking. We have already made adjustments to my blood pressure meds and are now making another adjustment. I have been very active on the web with building and maintaining my 18 URL’s and the 12 sites I currently manage. I have also been working about the house, doing yard work and making face masks. So far I have not found any physical limitations from the stroke. My mental abilities are also in good shape so overall I am one incredibly lucky man. Equipment 4Sale I am sure we mentioned this in the last newsletter but it is worth mentioning again. Our Equipment 4Sale section is now open to anyone who has equipment for sale. Take a bunch of photos of your equipment then find the proper category and start a topic. You can include all the text you wish as well as your location, contact information and price. You can upload up to 20MB’s of photos. Best of all when you are finished you can check the “Notify me of Replies” button and if anyone posts a reply the HAB system will send you an instant email with the content of the post. As always if you need any help let me know. Info@HotAirBalloonist.com and I will help in any way I can. THE EXCHANGE This section of the site was created for groups of pilots and ground teams in a specific area. The Exchange acts like a community bill board for ballooning in your area. Each exchange has four specific categories. “Pilot Forum” “Crew Forum” “Landowner Relations” & “Passenger Exchange” The Exchange is a great way for you to post stuff for other balloonists in your area. There are so many fantastic benefits to the Exchange it is hard to cover in a newsletter but briefly. You can look for crew, fill empty spots in your balloon, find new launch and landing spots or even share landowner complaints. It is literally a community bill board for your area. It is not viewable by the public and the “Follow” feature can be used so that everyone in your area gets notified of any new posts instantly by email. You will also have a written record of anything you have posted so no one can say they did not know! Remember The Exchange is a private (Members Only) area of the HotAirBalloonist.com site. Video Tutorials. We have continually been creating and uploading new videos in the Download Center under the category “Video Tutorials” WE have been eliminating many of the old (Flash) formatted files and upgrading them to the (MP4) format that can be viewed on almost any device. The new files are extremely helpful in learning how to use the site! Have a look at some of them today. The site is completely virus free and you can download any of the files safely! Face Masks We still have some Washable, Reusable and comfortable to wear masks in our store. We are almost out of the Balloon Print and will let everyone know if we get more in. There are still some other prints as well as solid colors available. Things here in Florida are getting worse so face masks are going to be standard practice for a while. Have a look in the store if you are interested. Humor As we could all use a little joke now and then. We have cleaned up the Balloon Humor category on the Main “Forums” page. There are a few good ones in there if you care to take the time to have a read. Remember this forum (as many others) is a private members only area of the site. You must be logged in to view and read. Feel free to add some of your own jokes for the rest of us! THANK YOU. At this point I am unable to fly. After over 7,000 flights and 45 years involved in ballooning I am simply heartbroken. One of our local pilots here called up the other day and said he had a brand new balloon that I could take out and fly if I wished. He would go along and let me preform in any capacity I wanted. I was in tears by the end of the phone call. It is exactly that type of gesture that reaffirms my belief that Balloonist’s are some of the best people on the planet. Thank you Thank you Thank you! If you have not read my BLOG here is the link. All for now. Jeff A Thompson

I just wanted to send a quick note to all the HAB members, Update on my health I have nearly made a full recovery from my homoerotic stroke in late February. I have a few tests left to complete but the only remaining symptoms are some dizziness and loss of strength. The dizziness happens mostly when I stand from sitting or if I bend over to work on something then stand back up. The strength is coming back as I do more and more around the house and doing some yard work. Again I must say, I am fully aware that I am an extremely fortunate to have come thru this nearly unscathed! I have since learned that only 26% survive and 60% of the ones who do survive have permanent issues or disabilities. I thank all of my Balloon Family for their continued support. Face Masks Since my return from the “Extended Vacation” (in the hospital). I have stayed very busy making face masks out in the shop. We looked at a dozen different designs and chose this version. They are light weight, comfortable, washable and you can insert additional filter material inside should you wish. We were selling them about as fast as I could make them. One balloon ride operation purchased 100 of them to sell to their passengers who show up to fly without a mask. WELL,,, My wife stumbled on 100% cotton (all of our masks are 100% cotton) Hot Air Balloon Print. We sold nearly 100 of them on the very first day we put them up on the site! Since then we have sold another 100 of them. Currently it takes me about 8-10 minutes to make one mask. Production is backed up! If you have purchased a mask on the HAB site and have not received a shipping email notice, do not fret, you will receive an email in the next few days letting you know we have shipped your order. We did not anticipate the demand but, we promise you will be pleased with your product. Equipment 4Sale Once again I would like all of you whom are looking for equipment or have balloon equipment for sale to have a look at the Equipment 4Sale section on HotAirBalloonist.com. We have posted about 40 new items as well as created three new categories. The categories make it easy for you to find exactly what you are looking for. These specific categories also make it easy for you to post your equipment in the correct category for others to find. Remember, if you are a member you can check the “Notify me of Replies” button at the bottom of your equipment listing. If you check the “Notify me of Replies” button when anyone posts a reply to your advertisement the system will send you an instant email! (Super handy feature). But remember you need to be logged in when you create your advertisement to be able to follow the post. The entire Equipment 4Sale section is also open to the public. You do not need to be a member on the site to advertise your equipment! Posting equipment for sale is FREE to anyone. You can tell us all about your equipment and add all the contact information and your location. You can also post up to 20 MB of photos! That is 100 photos if they are less than 200 KB each. There is a Video Tutorial about posting stuff for sale. So have a look today and post anything you no longer need for others to see. Please your membership helps us keep this site going. If you are not a paid member please consider becoming a paid member today. A general membership is only $20 for an entire year! Thank you for all you do for the Balloon World. Jeff A Thompson

OK, those of you whom know me personally may have just laughed out loud, however, I am truly humbled & eternally grateful from the support I have received from the balloon community. Thank you everyone for your support, prayers, kind words and amazing encouragement as I continue to get my life as close to normal as I can. I have gone nearly two weeks now with almost no headaches. My physical abilities are getting much better and the strength is slowly coming back. I still feel like I am on a pontoon boat in the ocean. Sometimes the ocean is calm and sometimes I am in rough seas. I have gone out for a short drive on my own the other day but only a short trip around the block. The rest of the time my wife Gina is my chauffer. I have a neurologist appointment on next Tuesday (the brain jokes have already started). My vitals have been real good the last month. We have had to make an adjustment in my blood pressure meds since I have lost more than 30 pounds. Overall I am doing quite well. I thank everyone for their continued support and words of encouragement. Equipment 4 Sale We have made a few changes to the Equipment 4 Sale section on the HotAirBalloonist.com site. Here is a quick list of the features. We have 22 different categories of equipment so you can find exactly what you want quickly. Anyone can post equipment. You do not need to be a member. You can add as much text, contact information and up to 20 MB of photos! Anyone can post a reply to any equipment. (Ask question’s make offers and more). Members can follow their post and get instant email notifications of replies. Members can edit or change their listing. Anyone can see the equipment listings. If you have any balloon equipment for sale give the Equipment 4Sale section of the site a try. Remember we are more than happy to help you and you DO NOT need to be a member to use the Equipment 4Sale section of the site. New Articles and Blogs. Since my stroke and with the pandemic I have had some extra time to devote to the HotAirBalloonist.com site. I have posted some items in the Current News area of the site. The Current News section has several great pages within it. When you mouse over or click on Current News on the primary navigation bar. There are several links that pop up on the top menu bar. “The Covid Convo” This link will take you to a sub-category inside the Hot Topics forum on the front page. There are many topics inside “The Covid Convo” category. Feel free to log in and express your ideas. “Ballooning in the News” This page has a headline scrubber that scours the internet looking for any news items about ballooning. You can find out about stuff before it hits the TV news or even the Reflector. You will also find out about balloon related stories that you may have otherwise never known. Articles and News page. This page has Articles written by our members and another News Scrubber that may find items the first scrubber does not. This page also has a very helpful section on the right column that has Balloon Festival News, Upcoming events, Status updates and recently posted topics and more. You can gain a bunch of information on one single page. Here is an article I just posted. The Blogs page. Members can start their own blog on this page. Create a blog about how you are handling balloon flights and the Covid-19. Start a blog about your favorite balloon adventure or event. Tell us a story. Here is a blog I recently posted about my stroke and commercial passenger flying. As always the site is for YOU! The site was set up and made for all things ballooning. Remember the Members side of the site contains even more stuff to see and do. Share your knowledge. Start a club, Create a photo gallery, Look for equipment, Post an event on the calendar, Stick a pin in the member map, Look at the files in the Download Center. Watch some of the many “How To” video tutorials, Spend some time looking over the HUNDREDS of Notable Balloonists Biographies in the Hall of Fame category. You may learn some history about pioneers you did not know. Hang out in one of the chat rooms. Most of all,,, TELL YOUR FRIENDS! The site works best when YOU are involved. Send us a note if you want to see a new feature added to the site or if you need help using something on the site. All the best to you all and…. Thank you for all you do for the balloon world. Jeff A Thompson.

WE have just added another new feature. As you are aware we are trying to promote our Equipment 4 Sale category on HotAirBalloonist.com. Not only do we have 13 primary categories in the “Equipment 4 Sale category but we have many Sub-Categories that allow you to fine exactly what you are looking for quickly. Each ad has pricing, Photos, Equipment Location and the contact information you need to contact the seller. In addition you can post a reply directly on the site about the equipment and the HAB site will send an email to the seller! WELL, We have added a new feature to this fantastic area of the HotAirBalloonist.com site. We now have a Twitter Promote button. Once you have created your advertisement you can also promote it on the HotAirBalloonist.com twitter page with a mouse click. Up at the top of your equipment ad right next to the Follow button is the twitter promote button. Just click on the button and check the photos you want to include and send! Keep in mind that this entire process is FREE! There is a new video for you to watch about the Twitter Promote feature. Click here to watch the “How to make an ad” video. Click here to watch the “Twitter Promote” video

I hope everyone is doing well. I am continuing to recover from my stroke. Each day I gain more strength and try to stay busy. I am still suffering some equilibrium issues but overall I seem to be doing extremely well. I have so far done better than the doctors have expected. I am currently making washable / reusable protective masks. They are available in the store on HotAirBalloonist.com. We have already sold out of the Navy Blue but have added new prints you may like. They can be purchased online and we send them out in less than 24 hours. Get yours today, while supplies last. New Look and New Features. We know you hate to have to log in all the time so we have addressed the issue of logging in. All sites like Facebook, Amazon and others require users to log in, and we are no different. There are private areas of the site for members only. To help our members we have created a few different ways that may make logging in easier. Once you have logged in you can select (remember me) and next time you will not need to remember your user name or password. You can also use your Facebook or Twitter accounts to log into the site! Even better yet using your phone or tablet you can save any page on the site as a bookmark or save to home screen and our new tablet icon will appear. Then when you go to the site and log in ONCE and you will never have to log in again! Here is how you set it up. Go to any page and save the page to your device. Then use the new link to go to the site and logged in. Now just close the browser. Now click the icon on your tablet or phone and POOF you are back on the site and logged in! Pretty cool! Equipment 4 Sale I know many of you use the Facebook groups for posting equipment for sale. I have also looked at many of the balloon groups. The issue I keep having is where to look? There must be 50 different groups on Facebook and how do you find what you are looking for? If you need a tank you must look down the page past two dozen other posts to find the first one that has a propane tank and it’s not what you are looking for. SO, post your stuff on HotAirBalloonist.com There is NO COST to place an ad. You can create an advertisement with up to 20MB’s of photos, Contact information and more. The best part is you can post your item in a category that is relevant. Tanks go in the Tanks forum and baskets go in the basket forum and trucks… Well you get it. There is even a video tutorial on HOW TO DO IT. No reason not to! If you need help just send us an email and we will call you and walk you thru the process! BASKET CURTAINS I have posted a bunch of stuff on Facebook about the clear vinyl curtains we have been producing for large ride baskets. So far we have made curtain sets for 4 completely different baskets. We have posted the Cut Sheets (patterns) online along with a downloadable basket measuring sheet an even a “How To” PowerPoint presentation. All are FREE for download on the site. Have a look at them on the HAB site and if you need curtains for your basket feel free to contact us. Thank you goes out to everyone who has been so kind to me and my family as I have been recovering. I will continue to be as much of a benefit to the balloon community as I can. Your support the last few months has been extremely heartwarming. Thank you for all you do for the balloon world. Jeff A Thompson

Do you do rides? The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 (H.R. 302, Pub.L. 115–254) is a United States federal law, enacted during the 115th United States Congress, which reauthorizes the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other programs till the end of fiscal year 2023. The bill was passed by Congress on October 3, 2018, and was signed by President Donald Trump on October 5, 2018. SEC. 318. APPLICABILITY OF MEDICAL CERTIFICATION STANDARDS TO OPERATORS OF AIR BALLOONS. (a) SHORTTITLE.—This section may be cited as the ‘‘Commercial Balloon Pilot Safety Act of 2018’’. (b) INGENERAL.—Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator shall revise section 61.3(c) of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (relating to second-class medical certificates), to apply to an operator of an air balloon to the same extent such regulations apply to a pilot flight crew-member of other aircraft. (c) AIRBALLOONDEFINED.—In this section, the term ‘‘air bal-loon’’ has the meaning given the term ‘‘balloon’’ in section 1.1 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (or any corresponding similar regulation or ruling) My overview. So from what I have read, for a pilot currently, to do balloon rides, you now must have a Second Class Medical. High blood pressure if medicated is not an issue but diabetes even with medication is prohibited unless you receive a special exception. We posted an article in the "Walkie Talkie" forum for more information if you wish. EQUIPMENT FOR SALE We have redone our equipment for sale section. You may now post your equipment for sale with photos, all the information you want to post with your contact email, phone and anything else you want to add. This is totally FREE to anyone who has balloon stuff for sale. There is even a Video Tutorial on how to do it. If you have equipment for sale or know someone who has point them our way. Facebook and Twitter You now can log into the site using your Facebook credentials or using your twitter account. Just use the links at the top of the page and follow the prompts. FaceMasks We now have face masks in the store on HotAirBalloonist.com They are Washable and Reusable. We have a few colors in stock and they are shipped out to you the very day you place the order. Have a look and get a few if you need them. We have one operator who purchased 100 of them to sell to passengers who show up to fly without one. Great idea! Thank you all for what you do for the balloon world. Back to sewing. Jeff A Thompson

Hope everyone is well. Please take the proper precautions to stay safe. I know the numbers of Covid-19 cases go up and down about as fast as the stock market. I do not believe that it is because of our activities as much as it is our method. Wash your hands! Don’t touch your face! Wear a mask! Use a wipe or bleach water and a towel to wipe off any items you bring into your home. These are the precautions that will keep us ALL SAFE. Basket Partitions. We have just completed our first set of clear curtains for the large ride basket. Looks like several ballooners around the country have done the same. We heard a few very good tips from other pilots who use curtains. Be very careful to explain to the passengers that the curtains are not to be used when climbing in or out of the basket. They can also be a burden to pre-boarding your basket during a windy inflation. I remember when we first started to use the Go-Pro cameras on a telescopic arm for in flight photos. There was a learning curve at first and it was difficult, but before long it became a normal part of the routine. We will be building curtains for a double T basket next week. Equipment 4 SALE. We have made some changes on HotAirBalloonist.com for those of you who have equipment for sale. Balloons, Baskets, Burners, Envelopes, Trailers, Trucks, Radios and even equipment transport! We have categories for all things balloon related. Unlike other locations you may post your items for sale, our “Equipment4Sale” category has many Sub-Categories and forums so you can search and find exactly what you are looking for quickly. As a seller you can also post your equipment in the correct category where it will be found quickly and easily. There are also locations were you can post a reply or ask a question of the seller. This service is FREE for both the seller and the buyer. All we ask is that when you sell your equipment you remove your advertisement. We have an online video tutorial about how to add your equipment and how to remove your advertisement when it sells. As always, If you need help just send me a note. The Video Tutorial is very helpful, give it a watch. So what are your new procedures? We have an entire category on the HAB site dedicated to flying during the Covid-19 pandemic. We would love to have your input. There are many questions and if you have an idea, answer or opinion we would like to have you participate. Here is the link to the category. As always we welcome your participation and… Thank you for all you do for the balloon world. Jeff A Thompson

Every day things change. If you have a balloon event and there will be a change of dates or any alteration please let us know. We will update your information on our events calendar. We are saddened to hear that the National Balloon Classic will not happen this year but hope that next years event is the best ever. Balloon Clubs I have been promising a video on using the Balloon Club feature on the HAB site. They are up! Three "How To" videos on the Balloon Club feature on the site. Have a view and see the cool stuff you can do. If you are a balloon ride operator purchase a "Ride Operators" membership this month and we will toss in THREE free ground crew memberships so you can start a club for yourself and your team. The BFA and Covid-19 The Balloon Federation has posted a statement that all balloonists should read. The very first category on the site is the BFA category. Check out the forum BFA and you will see the first two topics are Covid-19 topics. I believe they are well worth the time to read and well written. The Recovery I am still progressing each day. As I learn more about what had happened, I realize each day I am a very lucky man. For me at least the "Stay at home" order has given me the time to do a bunch of stuff on the HAB site. I Still am somewhat weak physically but have no apparent impairments. I still get dizzy from time to time, but take each day as a new chance to do more good things. Thank you all for what you do for the balloon world. Stay safe. Jeff A Thompson

CABIN FEVER Many of us understand that phrase but unless you live in the Arctic Circle (until now) you may not understand what it feels like. Seems now, more of us are feeling that way! The desire to get out and do stuff is nearly overwhelming and completely understandable. If you do decide to venture out please do it carefully. Statistics are showing you can catch the Covid-19 about as easily as the flu but it is much more dangerous. We know of a family where mom caught the virus and passed away in her 30’s during the time the husband spent caring for the mother, the husband became infected and also passed away. He was also in his late 30’s. They left two small children behind. Please be careful. How do we get back to flying? (Safely) We have started a topic in the Hot Topics category in the “Walkie Talkie” forum on the HotAirBalloonist.com site. We are looking for your input into this topic. How do we start flying safely again? Have a look at the topic and then post a response. https://hotairballoonist.com/forum/index.php?/forum/510-hab-walkie-talkie/ Remember you must be logged in to view and respond. A Great way to use the CLUB feature on HAB. So you fly a few rides and go to a few events each year. How does you crew know? How about starting a club for you and your crew? Purchase a “Balloon Ride Operators Membership” Then you get a 50% discount on crew memberships. Then start a club for your Balloon. Call it by your balloon name. Make it a private club and invite your crew to join. Now you have the ability to have a club calendar and a club newsletter and post events on the calendar and even create an RSVP for the events so your crew can sign up for any events you are planning to attend! Sound COOL? We will be making some Video Tutorials for exactly this. The Features are currently available NOW on the HAB site. If you do not want to wait for the Tutorials to be posted, just send me an email and I will be glad to get on the phone with you and walk you thru the feature live online! The Member Map This is still one of the COOLEST features on the HotAirBalloonist.com Site. If you are a Member of the site you should have a pin in the map. Imagine being able to find any balloon related service from a Ride Operation to a Pilot to a Repair Station and even balloon Events and even more anywhere in the U.S. and more. We are now starting to get pins across the world. Best of all you can separate the pins into one of many categories by simply unchecking the pins you do not want using the category box in the upper right side of the map. We just finished updating all the Ride Operators, Balloon Clubs, Repair Stations and BFA Board members and HACD Board. As always send us a note if you see something incorrect and let us know what needs fixed and we will jump right on it. How’s your website? This is a great time to give your website a facelift. The First thing we would recommend is to become a member of HAB. When you do you can create an advertisement for your Ride Operation on the HAB site in the Balloon Ride Category. Here is a pre-view of what others have done. https://hotairballoonist.com/forum/index.php?/topic/710-apex-balloons/ Next we would like to suggest that we help you with your site. We have looked at almost all the Balloon Ride websites online. Many are fresh and look wonderful but some could honestly use an update. We can build a new (up to date) site for you and help you promote the site to get more visitors and increase balloon ride sales. We can also provide several references of sites we have done for others for you to view. So think about what you need and then let us know how we can help. CHAT ROOMS, Now with the “Stay at Home” stuff going on this is a great time to jump on the HAB site and join us in a chat room! There are Public chat rooms where you can talk to other balloonists and even just random people or if you want to talk more “Shop” there are Members Only private chat rooms. We even have a few area specific chat rooms and if you want a chat room for your flying area let us know. We can create a room just for your flying area or group of pilots and crews. NEWLY OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! The BFA Hall of Fame committee has been working on a TON of new stuff. The committee chairman Orvin Olivier has agreed to open one of their many private categories for the public. Many of you may know that the HOF Committee uses the list of “NOTABLE BALLOONIST BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION” to draw names for possible submission to the BFA Board of Directors for inclusion into the National Balloon Museum Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame committee has many lists of Balloonists, whom have been identified for each list. The NOTABLE BALLOONIST LIST'S category is now open for your viewing. If you know a Balloonist whom should be on any of the lists please contact the HOF Committee and submit a biography for the Balloonists Biographical. To modify a BIO on file or to add a new BIO, please submit information to the BFA Hall of Fame Committee at Notable Balloonists Video Tutorials We have been continually adding new video tutorials to the HAB site. We have also been re-making some of our old videos from .swf format to .mp4 format so they will play on ALL of your devices. Have a look around some of the new videos, you may find some cool features you did not know the site could do! All for now Please be safe and if you need any help with anything on the site do not hesitate to send me a note. I am more than happy to help with whatever you need and if you have new ideas for the site we are happy to create something for our fellow ballooners. Join the conversation in the “Walkie Talkie” on how we get back in the sky. Thank you for all you do for the balloon world. Jeff A Thompson

An Update As many of you know I suffered a stroke back in late February. I spent most of March in the hospital; however, I am home now and doing better than expected. The recovery has good days and bad days but all in all I am a very lucky man. The current situation with the pandemic is difficult for all of us and the Thompson Family is also hunkered down like many of you. We send out best wishes and prayers to those of you out there whom are still working daily to take care of the rest of us! Thank you! Welcome Welcome to our new members on the site. Welcome goes out to Greg Miller, Austin Aeronauts and Phil Glebe. We encourage all balloonists to become at least a Registered Guest on the site. We encourage everyone to become a paid member on the site since paid members have even more features of the site available to them. The areas available, on the member’s side of the site are more than worth the modest membership fees. Members also benefit from being able to download ANYTHING in the Download Center for FREE! This feature alone can pay for your yearly membership. THE MEMBER MAP As many of you know I am working on the Member Map on HotAirBalloonist.com. The Member Map is available to anyone who visits the HotAirBalloonist.com site. The Member Map makes it easy to find balloon related services anywhere. Just zoom in on the map, to any area and you will find pins marking balloon related services. You can even remove pins you are not looking for by unchecking the box for the group categories you are not looking for. Another fantastic feature of the Member Map is that any event listed on the HAB calendars automatically gets a pin stuck in the map. For example if you have a Jr. Balloonists camp or have a safety seminar, post the event on the appropriate calendar and the calendar will place a pin in the map for you. These pins have a calendar Icon on them and they are green in color. You can see them currently on the member map in different locations all over the map. You can also customize your pin in the map. Here are a couple of screen shots of different pins with Logos or Photos added to the popup. FOR SALE Don’t forget we have a section on the site were you can post stuff for sale. There are forums for just about anything you have to sell. After I have finished with the Member Map I will be clearing out the old items that are no longer valid and looking to post new stuff for sale. If you are a member on the site you can post anything you have for sale. Best of all you can add contact information and photo’s and more. You can also go back and edit or change anything you have posted. We do ask please that you take them down when you have sold the items. New Stuff Stay tuned for new features being added to HotAirBalloonist.com and tell your friends to get involved. Help us by posting a link to HotAirBalloonist.com on your site or balloon club or anywhere balloonists go. Come join us in the chat room if you are on the web and looking around. All for now. We wish to say Thanks to all those whom have sent best wishes to us either by mail or on Facebook or by email. Your thoughts and prayers mean the world to me and my family. I will continue to post updates on Facebook as time permits. Thank you all for what you do for the balloon world. Jeff A Thompson.

Thank you is simply not enough, For those who did not know, I suffered a stroke. I am home now. I wanted to send a note to say Thank you, and to give you a short update on my recovery and progress. I am told the recovery from a stroke like mine could take months. I am still a little light headed and get some headaches now and then. I also suffer from dizziness and it is difficult to concentrate on things that have several steps involved. BUT, there is good news. My Neuro surgeon says these symptoms are all normal. My last CT scan shows a normal healthy brain! No permanent damage! I have also suffered no physical impairments at all from my stroke. So a full recovery is most likely. I was very lucky that my wife changed her plans that morning and stopped back at the house and found me. I am also extremely fortunate that my wife and mother got me medical attention right away. Otherwise the outcome most likely would have been very different. Now that I am home I am under the watchful eye of my wonderful (Amazing) wife Gina. She is keeping me in check. Each day I make progress. Working some on the computer and taking walks outside. Progress is slow and does not happen fast enough for me, but I am told it is happening. I never had much use for Facebook till now. Now Facebook seems like the best way to stay in touch. We are all held up in our home, very much like many of you. I certainly can use the time to heal. (AGAIN) Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Please be safe. Jeff & Gina (Wonder Woman) ON another note. Many of you have been to Indianola Iowa. I do not care when you were there because the man I am going to tell you about has been there working behind the scenes for 50 years! That is correct! Arlan Brown has been a volunteer at the Indianola National Balloon Championships as well as the National Balloon Classic! He will be turning 85 years old in a couple of days. Please take time to send him a card or just send a happy birthday email to this email lab79@wgu.edu They will make sure he gets it on his birthday. He has voulenteered his time for 50 years and god knows how many thousands of hours. Please take a moment and THANK HIM for his amazing dedication to an event that hundreds of pilots and thousands of ground crew love. All for now. Jeff A Thompson (Still alive and kickin)

This newsletter was written and sent out on Feb 16th 2020. This was the last letter before I suffered a Hemorragic stroke that put me into a coma for 5 days. I spent most of the month of March in the intensive care unit. We are going to have an open house! Have you ever wondered what is inside the HotAirBalloonist.com on the “Members” side of the site? Did you know that at last count we had 45,000 files? Hundreds of biographies, Hundreds of downloads, Hundred’s of balloon related topics, Public and Private Chat rooms, Balloon Clubs, Photo galleries, calendars, Member Map and so much more. So, to provide a look into the site we are going to have an open house. Starting today all areas of the site will be open for viewing to any guest who visits the site. Come have a look at how big the site is and the fantastic content available to our paid members. Are you on the MAP? Take a moment and stick a pin in the Member Map! Our Member map makes it easy to find a lost friend or a Ride Operation, Ground Crew…. BUT ONLY if you stick a pin in it. Take a moment and have a look at the Member Map. There is even a Video Tutorial on HOW TO PUT A PIN IN THE MAP. Even if you are NOT A MEMBER of the site. We have more than 700 pins in the map but with all the different categories we should easily have four times that! Please help us create the best and easiest directory to balloon related people everywhere. Chat Rooms We have said this before and will again. We have several chat rooms on the HAB site. Some of these are for members only but there are also PUBLIC chat rooms. If you are involved in ballooning and would be willing to answer questions from the general public, then please stop in and hang out in one of the chat rooms and answer a few questions from the public. Heck you may even be able to chat with an old friend or make a new one. If you scroll down to the bottom of the Forums Page you will see a bar that shows how many members are logged in and how many guests are wandering around the site. On average there are 100-200 people looking at the site. We have had as many as 1300 people on the site at one time. So come and chat a while when you have time. Balloon Clubs, First of all if you are a balloon club we want you listed on the Member Map. Balloon clubs do a fantastic job of bringing new blood into the sport. We want to help promote balloon clubs in any way we can. We also want any balloon club to create an advertisement we will run on the site at no charge to the club. Create an ad and we will link it directly to your website in hopes of sending a few new members your way. For those who do not have a club but always wanted to start one HAB is your best friend. You can create a club for FREE on the HotAirBalloonist.com site. Best of all, your club can have all the same features of the HotAirBalloonist.com site! You can have your own calendar, Chat Room, Events calendar, Blog, topics, Photo Gallery and MORE. You can create a club that is private, or invite only or open to all. Check out the balloon clubs feature on the HAB site. All for now. It is my sincere hope that the HAB site can be of value to everyone. Please keep in mind that the dues paid by our membership allow us to maintain this resource. We would like for everyone to help support this site. A General Membership for an entire year is only $20. You can also donate on our main page if you wish. Thank you all for your continued support. Jeff A Thompson.

Welcome to 2020! CALLING ALL BALLOONISTS. Whether you are a BFA member or not we would encourage taking their survey. The Balloon Federation is working with the FAA to help with the new regulations coming down the pipe. We need as much data as we can to help them help us. Please take the time to answer a few questions that can be a huge help to all of us. Here is the link. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BFA2020 The survey is very well done and does not take a tremendous amount of time. Please help with your input! The link is open 24 hours a day 7 days a week but will end in about a week. So don’t forget about this. Chat Rooms, We are not seeing much in the way of activity in our chat rooms. We have several private chat rooms and a few public ones. When you are on the computer working on something, take a moment and log into a HAB chat room. You may find yourself in a fantastic conversation with a fellow balloonist or even being able to pass on your passion to a curious potential crew member or future balloonist! You just never know. New Tutorials, As many of you know there are dozens and dozens of video tutorials in the Download Center of HAB. These videos can be super helpful with teaching how to use the site. These tutorials explain how to use many of the features of the site. When we first created them we used the Flash format. This format has been phased out on the web and on many other platforms. We have begun the process of making new tutorials in the MP4 format. This allows for them to be played on any device at any time. New Downloads We have a new feature on the main forums (front) page. This feature will show you, at a quick glance, the most recent additions to the download section. For the near future this will be mostly the new video tutorials we are creating but we are also uploading new maps and other items as well. This is a great way to keep up on what downloads are new on the site. Advertisers We are looking for a few advertisers for the site. Do you sell balloons? Do you sell a product that balloonist’s use? Do you know someone who has products you have used? Check out our banner advertising on the site. Showcase your product to all balloonist’s. Sign up is easy and available in the store. You can have a banner up and running on the site in just moments. We can even help build an ad for you if you wish. Seminar Season, Yes in deed it is Safety Seminar Season. If you have a seminar and would like to have it placed on our calendar please send the details to me at Info@HotAirBalloonist.com and I am more than happy to post a listing for you! All for now, but THANK YOU all for the continued support for this site and all YOU DO for the balloon world. O by the way, we have not seen you on the site since. {member_last_visit} Jeff A Thompson. Administrator for HotAirBalloonist.com

Flying Maps Imagine if you could click on a download link and import all your launch and landing sites into your iPad or other Apple device. Imagine receiving an email notifying you of a new launch and landing site! For those of you who fly using a GPS or an iPad running HOTAIR you will love this new section in the HAB Downloads center. HotAirBalloonist.com > Downloads > Launch and Land > Disney We are currently working on maps for our flying area in the Disney World Florida area. These maps are downloadable by any member of HotAirBalloonist.com when you are logged in. Feel free to log in and download them and have a look at what we are building. Currently there are two files in the Disney sub-category. Disney Area GPX file for Motion X Disney Area KML (HOTAIR App) The HOTAIR app file. Here is a photo of what the maps look like when viewed in the HOTAIR app. In the HOTAIR app, the launch and landing sites are color coded. Airspace is placed over area. Waypoint pins are placed in the map with location information. Location information can include: Owner name, phone, email, gate codes, directions or owners requests and more. The Motion X file. The Motion X file can be used in a couple of ways. First it can be imported directly into the Motion X app on your tablet. Second, it can be downloaded into your computer and then uploaded to your GPS. We use the EasyGPS program for uploading to our GPS devices. BEST OF ALL, We have 24 pilots in the area using the FOLLOW feature on the site. This means that any time a new file has been uploaded ALL the pilots in our area get an email notification with a direct link to the new files. So the very moment that a map has been changed everyone is notified. Feel free to send me comments or suggestions or let me know if you would like something like this for your flying area. Jeff A Thompson. Info@HotAirBalloonist.com

How have you been? Making some changes, Since the beginning HotAirBalloonist.com was designed so “WE” balloonists could share anything and everything with each other. HotAirBalloonist.com has a public face as well as a PRIVATE members only section. HotAirBalloonist.com has something for everyone! HAB. is a storehouse of Information, Files, Photos, Documents and Presentations and so much more. We also created a membership called the Registered Guest Membership. This was a FREE membership that allowed Balloonists from all over to participate in areas of the site that were for members only and to participate at no cost. This system worked for nearly two years till some enterprising spammers got into the site and started posting thousands of junk postings. We cleaned out more than 10,000 files in one folder alone. SO… We have altered the registered guest program. It is still possible to register on the site and to see some of the “Members Only” sections without paying for a membership. To become a Registered Guest on the site you must register and we must approve you. A Registered Guest will still be able to see areas of the site that are not open to the public but will no longer be able to create new posts on the site. For example, if you have equipment for sale you will need to register and be approved then let us know you want to post equipment for sale and we will give you a temporary membership to do so. We still want Balloonists to have the ability to post items for sale at no cost, but we must balance that with keeping the site “spam free” and SAFE for our members. If you are currently a Registered Guest on the site the only thing that has changed is that you no longer can post new topics where in the past you could. As this evolves we may make even more changes to keep the site free of spam and safe for our members. Of course you can bypass all of this simply by purchasing any of the regular memberships on the site. NEW DOWNLOADS We now have a new information slider on the front “FORUMS” page. This new slider shows the latest downloads posted in the Download Center. This is an easy way for you to find new stuff that you can download. This slider will show the 10 latest files that have been uploaded to the site. These file could be anything from photographs to presentations to map files and more. Some are free for download and some are for purchase. Remember ALL FILES are free to paid members of HotAirBalloonist.com. This new feature is an easy way to stay up to date on the latest files available for members. Video Tutorials We have started the task of creating new Video Tutorials on the site. These new videos will be a step by step guide with complete narration on how to preform many of the common tasks on the site. In the past many of these tutorials did not play on some devices. ALL of the new tutorials will be saved in .mp4 format so they will play on any device. In addition we will be creating a new forum on the front page where you can see the new additions to the Video Tutorial Library. The new forum on the front “FORUMS” page will simply be called “HowTO”. Each time we post a new “How TO” video the system will post a new topic in the new forum category. Log in and go to the new “How TO” category and click the “Follow” button and you will be notified via email each time a new video has been uploaded. CHAT ROOMS This is one of the greatest new features added to the site. CHAT ROOMS! Not only for the public but for members as well! The entire scope of this benefit (feature) may be a little hard to grasp at first. We have a Public Chat rooms and we have a private members only chat rooms. We can create a chat room for your area! (Public or Private) Imagine all your local pilots being able to chat and talk about launch and landing areas, Weather, Crew and more. Even better yet is that if you have a CLUB on HotAirBalloonist.com you can create a chat room for your CLUB! No Kidding! Imagine creating a club of your area pilots and crews and then having the ability to create your own private chat room! Yes we continue to make HAB better and better…. MAP FILES Did you know that HotAirBalloonist.com creates map files for balloon events? Our files are created for use with the HotAir app and for the Motion X app. If you have not used these applications we suggest you have a look at them. Both are great applications for use in pre-flight planning and inflight navigation. These files are FREE for download and you can download the file directly into your phone tablet or any device you are using the HotAir app or Motion X app on. There are also FREE Tutorials on how to download the files into your device. All available on HotAirBalloonist.com Thanks for your support! As always we thank our paid members who allow us to create and maintain this fantastic site. If you have not been on in a while and have a membership please log in to look! There is so much more on the Members side of the site that you will be amazed. Those of you who do not have a paid membership, we suggest you get a membership and see the 1,000’s of things on the member’s side. A crew membership for an entire year is only $20 and a general membership is only $20 a year. Pilots can also get a membership for as little as $4 a month. Please consider supporting the site. We were Lucky As many of you know we are located in the central part of Florida. In fact we are just behind (west of) Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The recent hurricane took a turn to the north and spared us. Our hearts go out to the Bahamas as they were totally devastated by the storm. If you are in a position to donate please do. We know firsthand here in Florida the unbelievable power of these storms. Irma hit us and we still have visible damage 2 years later. All for now, more soon. Jeff

Hi Friends and Fellow Ballooners. It has been a while since our last newsletter. We have been very hard at work on the HotAirBalloonist.com site. The biggest accomplishment of the last few months has been the Migration to a new hosting platform. Our old hosting location was not upgrading our server to meet our expanding needs so we moved. As you can imagine the task of moving a site the size of HotAirBalloonist.com was daunting to say the least. We moved more than 4.6 Gigabytes of data in over 5500 folders and 43,500 files including all the member information for over 900 members! I am happy to say we did not lose a single file. We are also happy to say that the entire migration took place with very little front end disturbance. We basically did it smooth enough it was hard for the users to know it had been done. Our new hosting provider and server environment gives us faster load times, more site security and many more options for expansion of the site and has enhanced the user abilities. We now can move forward on things that were restricted before. Go and have a look around the site when you have time. Balloon Camps, Once again we were privileged to be the provider for the BFA Kids Camps Name Badges. A super shout out goes out to the Camps, Directors, Staff and Kids who make those balloon camps such a fantastic event in the lives of our future balloonists. “Creating priceless memories is a priceless endeavor” Maps, Files and Apps. We recently did a post for the Orlando area pilots and realized that this would be helpful for all balloonists where ever you are. Here is a link to the post in the Orlando Pilots Exchange. NOTE* Do you use Motion X? Do you use the HotAir App? We have files for BOTH!. Here is a screen shot of the National Balloon Classic flying area as seen on the HotAir App. We can create these types of maps for your flying area too! Do you have a GPX file of your flying area? Do you want to share it with your other pilot friends? Send the file to us. Tell us a little about your area and we will create a download for your fellow pilots to download directly into their phone or tablet. We have also created some fantastic KML files for use with the HotAir App. As a member you can download all the files on the site for FREE. Log in and go download the HotAir App tutorial. If you have never used the HotAir app you will be surprised by all the features of the app. Even if you currently use the HotAir app you may learn something. The app is free for download for members. Many do not realize the huge database of downloads in our Download Center. Keep in mind that there are areas of the Download Center are not for the public. If you go to the download center and you are not a logged in member of the site you are missing most of what is there. Log in and go back to the Download Center and you will see entire categories that you did not see before. Chat Rooms, We have now added Chat Rooms to the HotAirBalloonist.com site. Some of them are public chat rooms and some of them are private (Member Only) rooms. We have found them to be very useful for pre-flight chatter among the pilots in our area. Many smart phones and tablets now have a dictation feature. So you can go to the chat room and just talk. The nice part of this is that you do not have to text several people at one time. Just have them all go into the chat room and talk as a group. If you wish to have a chat room set up for your flying area just let us know. As a member on the site you can also set up a flying club in your area. You can create your own PRIVATE chat room for only the members of your club. Keep in mind there is NO EXTRA charge to start a club on HotAirBalloonist.com so start one for your flying friends today! The Follow Feature. I know I have touched on this in past newsletters, but, I cannot express how fantastic a feature this is on the HotAirBalloonist.com site. You can choose what you want to hear about. Imagine there are 5 topics you see posted in one category. Three of those you could care less about but two of those topics are about things you would like to know more about or things you have questions about as well. The “Follow” feature allows you to check the items you want to hear more about. Then when an answer or comment is made about that topic the HAB system will send you an instant email! You can also UN-Follow when and if you choose. Currently we have a forum inside the Hot Topics category called “HAB Walkie Talkie”. This forum will send out 267 emails to balloonists all over the world when any new topic is posted. Have a question you want answered? Post it! ** Remember you must be a logged in member to create new topics in any of the forums. HalfOff From now till the end of this month, you may purchase a membership and get half off. Choose any of the following memberships. Ride Operator, Pilot, Ground Crew, Equipment Seller, Manufacturer, General Membership, Event Organizer or Student Pilot. Choose the Yearly option and during checkout use the coupon code HalfOff and receive a 50% discount on the membership of your choice. A General Membership is only $20 a year! So from now to the end of this month you can get a General Membership for an entire year for only $10. Don’t wait. This offer will expire at the end of this month. I will try to hang out in the chat room as often as I can to answer questions and connect with fellow balloonists. If you have time come visit in the HAB Chat rooms! Only a logged in member can go into the HAB Member chat room. All the best. Please fly safe. Jeff A Thompson. NOTE* You must be logged in. If you are not logged in you will see an error page when you click on the links in this email.

The more I think about this the more I become energized. Please forgive me for sticking another note in your email box but we must act as a whole or we may be doomed. I want to fly and not sit and talk about the good ole days when I did fly. The following is what I have sent my two senators about the "Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Re-authorization Act of 2017." You may use this if you wish. Dear Senator Nelson, While I appreciate the intent of the bill, the wording requiring the Air Balloon section (585) does nothing to promote safety and does have the real possibility to seriously harm the industry. Please allow me to elaborate. You cannot regulate pilot Judgement. Your bill regulates the health of the pilot via a medical exam yet there has never been an accident with a balloon that has been attributed to a pilot health issue. So what is it exactly you think you will fix with the medical requirement? This new regulation will not fix or stop any incident that has ever happened in a balloon. Do you understand why a Hot Air Balloon was exempt in the first place? In the early days of ballooning (I was there and a pilot) a balloon was a small aircraft and generally only carried one or two passengers and was not considered a likely commercial aircraft. In those days there was no consideration about a balloon that would carry a dozen or more people, it was just not even imagined. But today there are balloons that carry 12, 14, even 18 to 20 or more passengers. The balloon insurance companies have realized that those balloons do carry more risk and should require more stringent requirements on the pilots. I as well have no issue with more regulation on the larger balloons. They require a higher level of skill and vigilance to operate in a safe manor and some sort of medical exam may indeed be appropriate. To just throw a general blanket of regulation over the entire industry would harm the world of ballooning in ways you can not envision. There was a reason the industry was exempt in the first place and that has not changed. If you are seriously interested in creating regulation that would make the industry safer you should address the FAR 91.119. This regulates the altitude balloons can operate. Let me quote one line from that regulation. § 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General. Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes: (a)Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface. Think about this statement. On a hot air balloon the “POWER UNIT” is the burner on the balloon. If the burner goes out the balloon is going to fall to the ground. There is no glide slope like a plane. There is not steering or altering the course of the aircraft. There is no slowing the balloon down or banking left or right. YOU ARE GOING TO FALL TO EARTH and the higher you are the faster you will fall. So does it make sense to have a balloon at such a high altitude? Lets put this in some different terms. I have a pickup truck and a mile long hill. You are at the bottom of the hill and I have tied you into a chair so you can not move. Where do you want me to be when I put the truck into neutral and let it go? If I am at the top of the hill you will get hit by a truck doing 50 MPH and surely be killed. Or… If the truck is near the bottom of the hill then you will be bruised and live. A balloon down low is a safer aircraft then a balloon up high when you apply 91.119 (a). So here is the amendment I would suggest you place in section (585) of the the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act of 2017. Amend the section 585 to say this. 585.Applicability of medical certification standards to operators of air balloons (a)Short title This section may be cited a the Commercial Balloon Pilot Safety Act of 2018. (b)In general Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall revise section 61.3(c) of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (relating to second-class medical certificates), to apply to an operator of an air balloon (capable of carrying more than 12 passengers) to the same extent such regulations apply to a pilot flight crew member of other aircraft. (c)Air balloon defined In this section, the term air balloon has the meaning given the term balloon in section 1.1 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations (or any corresponding similar regulation or ruling). ADD THIS SECTION (d) Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall revise section 91.119 section (1) to read as follows. (1) An Air Balloon or helicopter may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section, provided each person operating the Air Balloon or helicopter complies with any routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for an Air Balloon or helicopters by the FAA; and The first part of 91.119 states Sec. 91.119 — Minimum safe altitudes: General. Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes: Since we navigate by wind layers at different altitude we use our ability to change altitude to navigate, Hence we are always in the process of landing from the time we lift off? Where I fly here in Florida we have thousands of square miles of swamp and Forrest. We are in the process of landing from the time we leave the earth and every altitude we fly at is used to carry us to our landing area. So I believe you could interpret that first sentence as an exception for balloons. I look forward to your input. Jeff A Thompson

Hi Everyone. I am looking again for a little help. First of all THANK YOU to all who helped me get in contact with many safety seminars all over the country. We have 10 care packages going out to these seminars with 100’s of giveaway goodies for all the attendees and some extra gifts for some lucky winners. You may see some of the HAB stuff at your seminar soon. Here is my next project. I am looking for Balloon Events. More specifically I am looking for the event organizers or those persons whom are responsible for the event, or on the events committee. In past years I have spent my January filling the HAB event calendar with as many events as I could find. No matter how hard I tried, I still missed many events or did not have the complete or most up to date information. This year I would like set up an account for each event, so they may post their own information on the calendar. So if you are involved with the planning of a balloon event or you know someone who is please have them contact me privately so I can set up an account and they can post their event information for everyone to see and use. If you wish to see what an event looks like go to the Calendar page and look at MARCH. There are two events you can view. “My Balloon Event” the first weekend of the month (Sample Event), or the FAVIA 225 (REAL event) starting on the 22nd posted by Tony Saxton. There is a video tutorial available for viewing in the download center under the category Video Tutorials Located at: Downloads > Tutorials & Presentations > Video Tutorials >How to Create a Calendar Event <SIDE note>. The BFA Hall of fame “NOTABLE BALLOONIST BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION” forum is now open for public viewing. If you have time have a look. If you know of someone who should be listed contact the BFA HOF committee. Located at: Home > BFA > BFA Hall of Fame Committee > NOTABLE BALLOONIST BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION Thank you all again. Jeff HotAirBalloonist.com

It’s a new year! Safety Seminar Season, Each year many safety seminars happen all over the country. HotAirBalloonist.com encourages everyone to attend a seminar if you can. The ideas expressed the topics covered and the general discussion; even during the breaks, is helpful to all of us. We as a whole must continue to strive for 100% safety. Each year we hear about silly accidents that simply should not have happened. Each year we watch other pilots do stuff we all know is done in poor judgement or just simply WRONG. Each year we promise to do better but honestly, we do not! HotAirBalloonist.com is trying very hard to help. This year we will be donating Pilot and Crew checklists to many safety seminars. These checklists are printed on 80 Mil PVC (Same as most credit or debit cards). They can be found and customized in our store online if you wish to have your own. These checklists will come with a plastic luggage strap so they can be attached to a flight bag, a tank, basket handle or anywhere the pilot finds handy. We will also be producing Crew Checklists as well. Things we NEED to talk about. Another item at HotAirBalloonist.com is the new “Things we NEED to talk about” forum. This new forum is inside the Safety Seminars category on the HAB site. This is a private forum for members only. If you go to the site as a guest (Not logged in) you will not be able to see the forum. Once you have logged in to the site you will be able to find the Forum “Things we NEED to talk about” inside the Safety Seminar category. When you go to this new Forum you can select the “FOLLOW” button on the right side of the page. When you ‘Follow” a topic, the system will send you an email any time a new topic has been posted. This will keep you informed about what is currently being talked about in the safety arena. ONLY MEMBERS, who are logged in, have access to this. If you have a “Registered Guest” membership you will need to upgrade to see this new forum. Just go to the store and select the membership that is right for you and upgrade your account. Then feel free to talk about problems you have seen and potential ways to solve. If we all contribute we all can gain! Things you DON’T see. We still have a hard time getting people to realize the stuff you don’t see. I know that does not make a whole bunch of sense but if you are just visiting the site as a guest and you are not logged in, you are missing more than half of the site! This is what makes our site so fantastic! We have a window for the general public to learn about ballooning and find service providers, festivals, Instructors and more on our “OPEN” or public side but as a member when you “LOG IN” the site becomes a HUGE resource for everything! Clubs, Services, Supplies, Instruction, Power Point presentations, Files, Events, and more, all at your fingertips with a click of a mouse. We monitor the site many times a day. We encourage participation and look forward to creating solutions to your needs. But, No matter how good we are and what we have to offer if you don’t participate we might as well sit in a closet! We can have the library of congress for ballooning at your fingertips but if you don’t use it then what good are we? When you log in, anything that is new, items you have not seen or read will appear with a DARK icon. Items with a faded out icon are things you have already seen. We have tried to make it as easy for you to keep up with what is new as we can. Did you hear about the Court case in California that states a balloon ride is not to be considered under the Common Carrier laws? How about whether or not you are operating a commercial vehicle when you take your truck and trailer to a balloon festival? Would you like to be able to download a Propane technical pocket guide or how about a diagram for an inflator fan frame? These are all things that are available on the site for our membership. If you do not log in or you do not have a membership you don’t know what you’re missing. Go and get a paid membership. Support HotAirBalloonist.com. A general membership is only $20 for an entire year! The HotAirBalloonist.com site is not only a very useful site for ballooning, but it is easy to use and a great benefit to ballooning in general and worthy of your support! GET INVOLVED, GET A MEMBERSHIP, and help us help ballooning. WHO ARE WE? Some of you know me and many may not. My name is Jeff Thompson. I live in Florida. I have just shy of 7,000 flights and about 5800 flight hours. I am a BFA level DA-8 on the PAAP (pilot achievement award program) I am also an Ed Yost Master Pilot award recipient. I had my pilot’s certificate before I had a driver’s license for a car. I purchased my first balloon in 1976 and took my parents Jim and Connie Thompson for their first flight at the age of 17 years old. I have been a member of the BFA since 1977. You may ask why I am telling you this. I love, live and breathe ballooning. I want to leave this sport better off than when I came into it. I created the HotAirBalloonist.com site so we could all work together and share our talents, passion, experiences and tricks, tips and failure’s together for the benefit of all. Unlike other ballooning sites HotAirBalloonist.com is user interactive. What I mean by this is that YOU a member can post things for others. WE CAN ALL SHARE with our fellow balloonists and talk about the things we need. Not only can you share our opinion, but you can share files, presentations, photos, and more for others to view and learn from YOU. We are creating a HUGE database of knowledge accessible by all balloonists for all our benefit. I know each newsletter I ask over and over for you to become a member. Please understand that I have personally funded this site for a very long time out of my own pocket. RIGHT NOW we are preparing packages for safety seminars all over the country. The dollar value of the items we are donating is in the thousands! Is it too much to ask that you get a pilots membership for $45 a year? (Thank you to those who have) How about a general membership for $20 a year? There are dozens and dozens of useful features built into HotAirBalloonist.com and more being added all the time. Get your crew a membership for $20 a year! The site has thousands of features and files. We were presented a BFA Directors award for our work with the BFA Hall of Fame committee. Soon you will be able to view the Notables category the HOF uses to select the nominations for the Ballooning Hall of Fame. There is simply something for everyone on the site. Go to the store, select a membership and support HotAirBalloonist.com, please. Fly safe As always I am available Jeff A Thompson. info@hotairballoonist.com 407-421-9322