Hot Air Balloon Launch, windy conditions

Hot air balloon launch during difficult conditions. Hugo, Oklahoma, October 2005. After this somewhat challenging launch, the balloon had a great flight, landing safely in Texas.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• hot
• air
• balloon
• launch
• windy
• conditions
• pre
• heat
• T3
• burner

[Federalworkers]

That was a very unsafe launch.

[kmcaviezel]

Are you one of those guys who says "if it is windy enough to require a tie-off, it is too windy to fly." ?

[kmcaviezel]

Yup, I have a quick release now. That was my first time trying the method Keith Mills showed me. His method is good because the dynamic release releases smoothly.

[mandopickerwcu]

Haha, I love the angry wife womment at the end. That was a really rough inflation, too much wind for my taste. He did a great job not to need some repair work though.

[kmcaviezel]

Glad you liked it. That was my second windiest inflation to date. I exercised patience in getting the heat into the balloon and we had a good flight, flying from Hugo, Oklahoma to north Texas with a near stand up landing in a tree-lined meadow.

[daytonmichaelphilpot]

Omg my grandpas old balloon that he owned at this time is in the video..." the beautiful one on the right"

[bluesrockfanatic]

Where I live, we can't even fly in conditions close to this. I wouldn't have bothered flying that day.

[Logan11350]

First of all who taught you to fly? Secondly I was wondering if you were ever going to heat that balloon up. I fly in windy conditions often and the approach you took to it in the video is deadly. First off your tie down almost cuts your head off because you have it over your shoulder. Hopefully you learned something from this launch. In windy conditions get your balloon as hot as possible as quick as possible and release it. You are putting maybe people in unnecessary risk during launch

[ZipBalloon]

I concur with you Adam.

[adamcolvin]

Ask your crew to not just stare at the balloon, but to help. Maybe hold the mouth open, or help on crown?

I crew for the 310, and we've taken off in these conditions, and in a much smaller park. You need experience before you do these situations, especially your crew.

Someone also needs to grab the fan and guide it directly into the mouth, that would contribute.

I'm not trying to insult anyone here, I love crewing, and these are the things I know that help me in my job.

[g1g2g366]

i hate launching in winds over 15 knots, they are a pain lol

[pateli2008]

I'm no expert in the field by any means, but it strikes me as dangerous the close proximity to other ballons in those difficult moments of the launch. For a moment I feared the basket would get hooked to the other balloons.

Nice release in any case, I liked the moment it went rapidly up.