Sun & Balloon Rise @ Green River

Taken during the Saturday morning ascension at the 21st Annual Green River Festival.

Already having photos of so many of these balloons from other events, I tried a different approach while shooting. I wasn't completely happy with the results and ended up severely editing the footage, but I did learn something about my preferences which I hope to apply at future events.

I found out from reading the festival blog that cluster balloon pilot John Ninomiya was scheduled to appear -- John's website had "TBD" as the flight day. When I arrived Saturday morning and grabbed a program, I discovered he was scheduled to go up Friday night (the truck from the company supplying the helium was still there). In any case, Ninomiya can now cross Massachusetts off his list!

The remote controlled balloon, Phantom of the Opera was also present. Other than that, here are the players -- um -- pilots and their beautiful balloons:

• Last Penny -- Billy Colyer
• Half & Half -- George Seymour
• Prime Time -- Kate Clayton-Jones
• Ridgerunner -- Nancy Curtis
• Party Time -- Frank Bart
• Monkey Business -- Mary Ann Lappies
• Big Max -- Chris Mooney
• Peacock -- Jim Ellis
• Great Balls of Fire -- Bill Whidden
• Thunderbuster -- Paul Sena
• Fleckfolly A -- Bob Dicks
• Viewpoint -- Daryl Smith
• Peanuts Encore -- Ron Thornton
• Blue Horizons -- Ray Fournier
• Firehawk -- Don LaFountain

Please check out the photos on Flickr!

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• heartlover1717
• green river festival
• greenfield
• hot air balloon

[Heartlover1717]

@Darthjacy Just so you know, there was a glitch with my account here on YT, and once that was fixed, all of my responses were missing, so I did have a reply to sonnysigh03 posted previously. Thanks for your help!

[Darthjacy]

@sonnysingh03 Wind currents change depending on how high you are. Heres an idea, look up the box winds. That would be the wind current for Albuquerque, New Mexico.

[sonnysingh03]

might be a stupid question but how can u steer a hot air balloo? and i f u land some where u dont want to or a change in wind arnt u dammed?

[taburineagle]

Very cool! At least the weather cooperated with you on *this* show! :) Very nice editing, but the sound kind of trails off at around 1:00... it gets a lot quieter and there's bagpipes in the background... were there bagpipes for the whole event?