+sept1c_tank Posted October 21, 2005 Share Posted October 21, 2005 ...it was natural for me to want to try and combine hot air ballooning and geocaching. The way I had envisioned doing it was to try and fly the balloon to a geocache and land as close as possible to the cache, hopefully close enough to reach out and grab the container... Scott, the idea of free flying a balloon to a cache site, logging the cache, and continuing in free flight is really intriguing. This concept is similar to an established type of hot air balloon competition, the key grab. In a key grab contest, balloonists compete by navigating their balloons from 3-5 miles away (choosing their own launch site outside of the given radius) to a pole where the keys to a new truck are attached. Everyone launches from his or her own position after a certain time and the FTF gets a fabulous prize. Sounds a little like geocaching. Ropingthewind, I think you should try something like this, and I think you should box it! Navigating a balloon from any point to a precise destination is a real challenge. Imagine the waypoint of a cache to be the pole; you have to plot it on a map (find it), navigate a two or three ton (displacement) aircraft several miles to it, land, and while maintaining ballast in the inflated balloon, sign the log and then fly your aircraft to a spot where your crew can meet you. Now, to get into both the geocaching and ballooning record books, you could plan something like this for one of those special box wind days Ballooner mentioned above: We had a perfect ballooning day with "box" winds. A box is a wind condition where you can fly one direction down low and then ascend a few hundred feet and get an opposite wind. Ride that past your starting point and then descend to catch the lower wind back to the launch site. (See this bug page for a better discription of The Box) That day the box kicked in at about 500' AGL (above ground level) and I did it twice in 20 minutes. The balloon owner then got rigged up and flew the box himself. Another topic was discussing legal ramifications of combining another hobby or lifestyle and geocaching. Interestingly, with a combination of caching and ballooning, there could be some (FAA) complications. Here are the pertinent and current FAA flight rules pertaining to minimum altitude: There are also loopholes involved. Because of the peculiar properties of balloon flight, they can be landed safely, under the proper conditions, in places like a medium sized yard in a populated area. So as long as your are making a landing approach, even if you are blown slightly off course and have to abort the landing, you are usually not violating the FARs. Quote Link to comment
SteveGriffin Posted October 22, 2005 Share Posted October 22, 2005 (edited) Balloonatic sent me the link to this thread. I started geocaching about 3 years ago when I was in Alaska attempting some AX-1 & AX2 records. One of the British guys who was with us was into caching and we spent a couple of non-flyable days trudging around in the snow looking for hidden treasure and webcams. When I decided to go to Canada for another go at the records caching added a bit of interest to the weight loss program. I started ballooning in 1985 and now operate a ride business over Brisbane, Australia. Fly Me To The Moon - Hot Air Ballooning Blatent plug there! My real experience with GPS was in 1994 when I completed the first solo crossing of Australia by balloon in a Rosiere. I used a GPS55 which is so primitive by todays standards and it cost around US$2000 at the time - oooouch! Love the idea of a fly-in / fly-out cache, sounds like a great idea for a rally task Team RopingtheWind is seriously heroic Edited October 22, 2005 by SteveGriffin Quote Link to comment
+Ballooner Posted December 5, 2005 Author Share Posted December 5, 2005 This weekend, some of my geoballoon crew and I participated in the Red Rock Balloon Rally in Gallup, NM. On Saturday flying was cancelled due to high winds but we had a great flying day on Sunday. The winds were perfect for fly in and out and over the canyons. We carried with us a 50 cal ammo box cache ready for hiding. We launched and worked the winds up a canyon and then up on top of one of the red rock ridges that protrude out into the valley. We landed at the top and I placed the cache container under a big pinon pine tree. We then flew away and continued to play among the bluffs and canyons for another hour. After we landed and packed up the balloon, we hiked back up to the cache to assure that it could be reached by foot. We think that this is the first cache to be placed directly from a Hot Air Balloon. It has now been approved as Red Rocks & Hot Air. There are more pictures of the fun on the cache page but here we are just about to plant the cache: Quote Link to comment
+sept1c_tank Posted December 6, 2005 Share Posted December 6, 2005 Good on ya, mate. Now we just need someone to fly in and log it! Quote Link to comment
+balloonatic Posted December 6, 2005 Share Posted December 6, 2005 It must be nice to be able to fly in December without the various layers of clothing and all the other things that come with -20C flying. The event looked like a lot of fun. I'm going to look around on the web to see if the event has a website... This is the first cache planted via HAB that I know of! Still working on finding my first! Quote Link to comment
+balloonatic Posted December 6, 2005 Share Posted December 6, 2005 (edited) test Ignore this message ...I thought I could delete it but I guess I can't??? Edited December 6, 2005 by balloonatic Quote Link to comment
+Ballooner Posted December 6, 2005 Author Share Posted December 6, 2005 It must be nice to be able to fly in December without the various layers of clothing and all the other things that come with -20C flying. The event looked like a lot of fun. I'm going to look around on the web to see if the event has a website... This is the first cache planted via HAB that I know of! Still working on finding my first! Here is the website for the Red Rock Balloon Rally . The temp at pilot briefing was +7F (-14C) and by the time we landed 2 1/2 hours later it was all the way up to 20F. We still had to put a few layers on. (Ski mask smilie) The wind then picked up to about 15 mph by the time we hiked back up to the cache. Quote Link to comment
+Ballooner Posted December 6, 2005 Author Share Posted December 6, 2005 It looks like we are going to get a Waymarking catagory for Hot Air Balloon Festivals. Go to this Waymarking forum thread and read about the proposal. Add your comments and suggestions. I just got an email asking if I would manage the new catagory so it looks like it is on the way. Quote Link to comment
+balloonatic Posted December 8, 2005 Share Posted December 8, 2005 Found this site with some great pictures from this year... http://www.kissesoffire.com/Gallup2005.html Quote Link to comment
+Flatiron & Mrs. Wrangler Posted December 8, 2005 Share Posted December 8, 2005 This post just happened to catch my eye this morning. Being I got to be one of the crew and cachers that went aloft with RTW (RopingTheWind) to get the Shiver Me Timbers cache, I'd just like to say what an experience it was. It will probably be my favorite caching adventure of all time. Scott is quite adept at piloting a balloon, and it was an honor to have been a member of his crew, and also go up to score the cache. Maybe there will another one like this in the near future?............. Quote Link to comment
+Ballooner Posted December 11, 2005 Author Share Posted December 11, 2005 Found this site with some great pictures from this year... http://www.kissesoffire.com/Gallup2005.html Wow, those are great pics of the event. They even got me in some of them. Here is a nice pic of me on the way to planting the cache. Quote Link to comment
+balloonatic Posted December 13, 2005 Share Posted December 13, 2005 I noticed that picture too! The web page has a lot of pictures of another balloon (looks like a Cameron C) with a similar color scheme. It was fun going through the pictures trying to find your balloon. Kinda like Find Waldo... The most we ever get to a normal balloon event up here is 20 balloons (unless your in St Jean or Gatineau). I particularly like the Gopher Twins! Who owns these balloons? Quote Link to comment
+Ballooner Posted December 15, 2005 Author Share Posted December 15, 2005 I particularly like the Gopher Twins! Who owns these balloons? If you mean these: They are actually squirrels. They are owned by Roger and Kelly Baldwin from Bosque Farms, NM. They got married at the Gallup rally. (The squirrels...not Roger and Kelly, they are already married .) Quote Link to comment
+balloonatic Posted December 19, 2005 Share Posted December 19, 2005 Do the squirrels have a tour schedule? Where could I see the squirells in action? Is there a website for these robust rodents? Just curious... I'd like to see their cache! Quote Link to comment
+mbooda Posted March 19, 2006 Share Posted March 19, 2006 (edited) I never expected I'd be the first balloonist in these forums, but it's still fascinating to see all the rest here...and such well "seasoned" ones too! I fly a "Headstrand"...a Head AX8 envelope on top of a Lindstrand lower end. I consider this to be the best of both worlds. I'm kind of a newcomer compared to all of you...I've only been chasing since 1989 and piloting since 1997. I got a late start flying because I was (brag) the best crew chief available, and no one wanted to lose a crew chief by teaching him how to fly. Even after I started flying on my own I looked with disdain on those pilots who used GPS...I was a "seat of the pants" flyer. Besides...if I wanted to know where I was and where I was going, what was I doing in a balloon in the first place? But I finally caved in and my wife bought me a Garmin eTrex a couple of Christmases ago. That, in turn, slowly led me into geocaching. It's been a great "backup hobby"...as you balloon pilots know, sometimes the weather isn't good enough to fly, but it's almost always good enough to geocache. I've only flown once this year, but the "season" is starting. I typically go to events ranging from Alabama to east Texas. I also make it a point to go to Fiesta in Albuquerque every couple of years. We're (hoping) to go this year. So hopefully I'll get a chance somewhere in the Fly-Refuel-Tailgate-Nap-Briefing-Fly cycle to look for caches where I happen to be flying. Who knows, someday I may get to Red Rocks. Sure looks pretty! Here's my page at msballoonchamps. Edited March 19, 2006 by mbooda Quote Link to comment
2B Amazed Posted March 21, 2006 Share Posted March 21, 2006 Enjoyed reading the posts as I lived in Albuquerque, can still spell it too, and miss the balloon fiesta. Last one I was involved in was...remembering is such a handicap somedays...1993 57th Coupe Aeronautica Gordon Bennet Race. I believe the winner landed around Hastings, NE starting from Albuquerque. I worked at a company called Phillips Semiconductors, then Signetics, which was a short hop, and a great view when working weekends, from the Fiesta park. Cheers to all you fliers out there! Quote Link to comment
+Ballooner Posted March 24, 2006 Author Share Posted March 24, 2006 Do the squirrels have a tour schedule? Where could I see the squirells in action? Is there a website for these robust rodents? Just curious... I'd like to see their cache! I don't know what kind of tour schedule the squirrel balloons have but they are owned by Roger and Kelly Baldwin in Bosque Farms, NM. You can reach them through their main business: Lasting Impressions Embroidery 2485 Bosque Farms Blvd Bosque Farms NM 87068-9336 Phone: 505-869-9190 Quote Link to comment
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