I miss Flying 09/10/2021

[hotairballoonist]

Where were you?

Funny how time flies.  I still clearly remember just were I was on September 11^th 2001.  I had flown passengers that morning and was dropping off my morning guests when the images came over the TV in the hotel lobby!  The Horrifying images froze me in that moment.  I can still see the setting as clear as if I were standing there now.  It is hard to imagine that was 20 years ago.

EOL of Motion X

Many of you are aware of the “End of Life” of the Motion X program.  I have used it for years for pre-flight planning to determine my launch and potential landing areas.  The “Measure Tool” in Motion X was fantastic for determining your distance and direction from any two spots on your map.  They were easy to move around and they gave you the distance and direction for accurately planning your flight.  By using the observations we gained from our Pi-bal we could choose a launch site that would give us a few good landing areas down wind and consistently land in a chosen spot.  This flight planning tool was incorporated into the latest update of the HotAir.app 12.0.  We were asked if there was a way to migrate the waypoints from the Motion X application over to the HotAir.app.  The answer was YES but it was a little bit tricky so we created a tutorial for the process.  The Tutorial can be found in the Download Center under Tutorials & Presentations.  MotionX to HotAir.app   (Remember all downloads are FREE to members)

Don’t let it sneak up on you.

As many of you know my commercial flying was abruptly ended by a hemorrhagic stroke.  I let my health slip to a point where I nearly passed away!  I did not realize it was happening.  Yes I knew I was overweight but I was out flying nearly every day!  I worked hard the rest of the day on equipment and cleaning vans and running errands.  My blood pressure was a little high but not horrible.  My doctor had noticed a little increase in my blood sugar levels but here again nothing to be worried about.  But what I did not know what the under it all I had Hepatitis C.  (I was given tainted blood from a motorcycle accident back in the 1980’s before anyone knew what Hep C was)  This was causing damage to my liver.  The combination of all the things at once caused my stroke.  5 days in a coma and nearly a month in the hospital.  Even after I came home I spent 6 months feeling like I had been drug behind a pickup truck across a plowed Iowa corn field.  Here we are 20 months later and I still have issues with my balance and equilibrium.  My point is this.  Please take care of your health.  I miss the joy of ballooning and the ability to share the magic of LTA flight with those who have never taken a balloon flight.  But you have to take care of you first!  I will still continue to do anything I can to help everyone in the Balloon World in any way I can. Most of all I want each of you to make sure you take a good look at your HEALTH.  Take it serious so it won’t take ballooning away from you like it did to me. 

Equipment 4Sale

As many of you know there is an entire section on the HotAirBalloonist.com site for equipment.  You do not need to be a member to post something for sale or to look at the items that are posted for sale.  Anyone wanting to list items can also include up to 20 megabytes of photos and all the descriptive text they wish.  Don’t forget to check the “Notify me of Reply’s”.  This way when someone asks a question about your equipment you will instantly get an email from the HAB system letting you know that someone is interested in your equipment.  One of the best features about the entire Equipment 4SALE are the Sub-Cats.  The primary Forum is Equipment 4SALE but inside that Forum are Categories such as Full Systems, Envelopes, Baskets & Bottom Ends and so on.  And inside each of those Categories are Sub-Cats.  For example the Category “Full Systems” will have Sub-Cats of      (69k or smaller) (70K to 90K) (91K to 120K) (121K to 175K) (176K and UP)  So as you can see the layout is super easy to use to find exactly what you are looking for quickly.  Go have a look or better yet post an item for sale!

Ballooning in the News

Here is a story that was just 3 hours old when I pulled it off the HAB site. 

Young Bothell native leading new generation of hot air balloon pilots

Many of the members do not realize that we have two active internet web scrubbers that work 24/7 to find balloon related stories for our balloonists.  These scrubbers look for any stories on the internet that have balloon related content.  One of the scrubbers looks for any topic about ballooning and the other one looks for balloon festival related articles.  The results of these can be found under “Current News” / Ballooning in the NEWS.  The Main content of the page has the articles the primary scrubber has found and the age of the article so you can see how recent the article is.  Festival news can be found on the Right Hand side bar.  Those articles also have a time stamp to show you the age of the article.  So if you wish to find out the latest balloon news anywhere on the web just save this link and check in anytime.

Ballooning in the NEWS

Pi-Ball by Drone

Yep that’s right, Soon you may no longer need a helium balloon and a compass to get your wind readings and a theodolite may become a museum piece like a slide rule or a sextant.  A few smart fellows have figured out that by computing the speed of the motors on a drone (needed to keep the drone in a stationary position) can be used to determine the speed and direction of the winds at different altitudes.  Since Drones are now using GPS for positioning and navigation they are also being used for altitude control they can be used to calculate the wind speed and direction more accurately than a pi-ball or even a theodolite.  We will be diving more into this in our next newsletter but I thought I might give you a little tease into some of the stuff I have been looking into

No more Glympse

So the rumors are true.  The app Glympse is going to be discontinued.  For those of you who use the app HotAir there will be an update soon with a replacement tracking module built into the app.  I have not been given any more details at this time.  But as soon as I have more I promise I will send out a newsletter with as much details as I can.  In the mean time I will be doing some research on some other tracking applications that would work well for ballooning.  I have started a topic in the forum “Hot Topics” in the category Hot Topics if any of you have other apps you use for balloon tracking that you wish to share with the rest of us.  The part that disappoints me the most is the new hashtag ability that Glympse had just introduced where you could have several pilots all use the same hashtag and all show up on a single map together.  Hopefully whatever replacement the HotAir.app will incorporate will have that ability.

I challenge you.

When was the last time you did your weight and balance for a flight?  No honestly!  Not guessing or approximately or good guess or close enough for government work but really set down and took 5 minutes and worked it out!  Here are the rules.  10 minutes into the flight at 1000 AGL you must be within 10 degrees of your average envelope temp.  Do your weight and balance sheet before your flight.  Give the balloon about 10 minutes to burn off any dew or moisture that may be on the envelope and allow the webbing or load tapes to absorb the envelope heat so the balloon temperature levels out.  See if you can do your weight and balance well enough to be within 10 degrees of accurate!  If nothing else it will be a great and educational exercise!  For those of you who use the HotAir.app there is a Payload Calculator you can test out on the Real-Time settings page.

Put your Waiver on your Tablet

Did you know you can have your waiver on your tablet?  Currently we work with several ride operations who request that the passengers print, sign and bring their waivers with them when they come to fly.  However there are always those who show up without a waiver.  This then requires them to carry a notebook and paper copies for the passengers to read and sign the morning of the flight.  BUT,  We can also create an online PDF waiver for you to use.  There is a tutorial presentation in the Download center that explains the process on how to get YOUR Waiver online for you to use on your device.  You can then have the passenger sign it and you can email yourself a copy and print it when you get back after the flight.  Or even save the digital copy and avoid all the paper and ink in the first place.  Here is the link to that tutorial.

 

Many of you are gearing up for the big one.  This one will be a special event after a year absent.  Please be alert and safe.  Fly only when you are comfortable doing so and be extra vigilant about everything.  Enjoy seeing your family and friends and make the most of an amazing event but most of all remember that you represent all of us, even those of us who cannot be there.  Have fun and be safe.

Thank you for all you do for the Balloon World.

Jeff A Thompson