Sharon Dunn, (Bio) sdunn@greeleytribune.comNovember 17, 2007 Comments Print Email
The high winds didn't take many residents by surprise Friday morning in a small farming community in Franklin County, Iowa.But the winds would ultimately take the lives of two Colorado residents flying cross-country in a helium balloon. A third passenger survived.That man, Doug Chaplin, 58, of Albuquerque, N.M., saw John Korth arrive at the crumpled balloon basket that had just fallen 60 feet to the ground and asked him for help."He said they left like Wednesday from Colorado, and ... they had been in the air the whole time," said Korth in a phone interview Friday night.Chaplin was in a helium balloon piloted by Dr. Thomas Boylan, 62, who was a doctor at a pain management clinic in Fort Collins, and Bradley Brookhart, 37, of Littleton. Both Colorado men died at the scene.
The men had taken off around 11 p.m. Wednesday from Greeley on a cross-country flight. Another balloonist, Troy Bradley, of Albuquerque, who has flown balloons since 1976, launched from Greeley in a different balloon in which he was attempting to add another record to his list of accomplishments."Troy was trying to set the world distance and the world duration records for the smaller size helium balloon he had," Greeley resident Tim Cole said Friday morning, attempting to allay fears of UFO sightings some in Greeley had thought they'd seen Wednesday. "Tom was flying a larger helium balloon as a training flight."Both balloons had lighting to permit flight at night, and Cole said Greeley is a good launching area because it's away from most major flight paths. Also, they launched from the Greeley area because Cole -- who has become well-known for planning and overseeing world record flights -- lives in Greeley.Bradley's balloon was still in the air, east of the crash site, and according to media reports, he was unaware of what had happened.
Moments before the crash, Marillyn Korth was working to get her shoes on so she could wave at the balloon from her porch."It was really very exciting to see the balloon and to have it turn out so bad, that was not fun," said Korth, 72. "It was quite windy here, and it looked like it veered to the left and the balloon itself took off. ... I thought it was unusual for a balloon to be in the air. Out here on the plains, it blows a lot. Our friend called and said it was going quite fast."She had called her son, John, to look, too.He watched, as it suddenly seemed to get hung up mid-air."I thought it was really windy for a balloon," the 44-year-old said. "My mom and dad called me, because we don't have that many balloons come through. I stepped back in for two steps, and I walked back out and thought, 'These guys are pretty low.'"Then I noticed, something's not right. The basket started to do funny things. They were caught in the highline wire, he said, adding that a truck driver who also stopped said he saw the men throwing sand out of the basket, as if to give them enough height to clear the lines."They were swinging pretty hard, and the wind was pretty hard, and it hung out there for a while," Korth said, then the cables attaching the balloon to the basket just snapped, he said."The basket fell to the ground, and I'm trying to dial 911," he said. "It was just freaky. I realized the call time was 9:11 a.m."Dick Johnson, a reporter with the Globe Gazette in Mason City, Iowa, responded to the scene about 40 miles from Mason City."The basket was on its side, and the balloon was a good half-mile to the north," Johnson said, noting that the balloon straps lay on the power lines when he arrived on scene around noon (around 10 a.m. Colorado time) Friday. Johnson said the power company was called to shut off power to the line to remove the straps, as emergency crews waited for investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration.Korth said Boylan and Brookhart, both face down, were dead when he spoke with Chaplin as they waited for paramedics. Chaplin, who landed face up with Boylan face down on top of him, told Korth his ground crew was driving about eight hours behind them and was somewhere in Nebraska."You know when you're waiting for help, it seems like forever," Korth said.His mother didn't see the men, as she waited outside the cow pasture that they had landed in. Later Friday, her thoughts again turned to the weather."Everyone's gone, and everything is quiet, and we have a beautiful moon shining here," she said Friday night. "It was a tragedy, but I guess it was a man doing what he liked to do. ... We just want to send our sympathies out to the families."Contacted later Friday, Cole said Boylan's family wasn't yet ready to talk and would appoint a spokesperson today. Chaplin was listed in fair condition at North Iowa Mercy Hospital in Mason City.-- Tribune reporter Mike Peters contributed to this report.CRASH FACTS* The course: Launched form Greeley around 11 p.m. Wednesday, landed in Omaha Thursday night, expected to land in eastern Iowa at sunset Friday.* The craft: Helium-powered balloon* Who died: Dr. Thomas Boylan, 62, Fort Collins; Bradley Brookhart, 37, of Littleton.* Survivor: Doug Chaplin, 58, of Albuquerque, listed in fair condition at North Iowa Mercy Hospital in Mason City, Iowa.Difference between hot air and Helium balloons» Hot air balloons fly because the air in the balloon is hotter than the air outside. Since hot air rises, the balloon rises when the air in the balloon heats up. Pilots control their balloons by heating more air or slowly releasing the air, thus allowing it to cool off.» Helium balloons fly because the Helium gas inside the balloon is lighter than the air outside the balloon. They rise when the Helium is pumped into the balloon. Typically, helium balloons are harder to fly.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Troy Bradley, new records.
Well done Troy Bradley on bringing two more records home, will add more when I find it.
Gary
For Immediate Release
11/16/07, 2225Z / 1725CST:
At 2225Z/1725CST, Troy Bradley safely landed in 7kt winds in Pleasant Springs, WI. According to his gps, he flew 824 miles in a little over 42 hrs., acquiring two more records.
Take off: 11/14/07 @ 0507Z
Landing: 11/16/07 @ 2225Z (±)
Gary
For Immediate Release
11/16/07, 2225Z / 1725CST:
At 2225Z/1725CST, Troy Bradley safely landed in 7kt winds in Pleasant Springs, WI. According to his gps, he flew 824 miles in a little over 42 hrs., acquiring two more records.
Take off: 11/14/07 @ 0507Z
Landing: 11/16/07 @ 2225Z (±)
Indias first balloon ride company..
Jaipur, Nov 17 - India's first commercial hot air ballooning venture will commence from Dec 1 here and is a joint venture between the Rajasthan government and E-Factor Adventure Tourism (P) Ltd, the company announced Saturday.
Sky Waltz - as the venture is named - will initially have two balloons with total seating capacity of eleven passengers.
Targeting high spending Indian travellers, adventure sports enthusiasts and foreign tourists alike, Sky Waltz will launch the balloons from Amber Fort and surrounding areas.
Announcing the launch, Samit Garg, director, E-Factor Adventure Tourism (P) Ltd, said, the venture is 'for Indian and foreign tourists alike as Jaipur is a prime tourist destination'.
'Initially, we are commencing service of two balloons but will be adding more balloons along with more locations in Rajasthan,' he said.
Navigated by experienced international pilots, the duration of each flight will be of one hour, with each balloon flying morning and evening, six days a week, depending on weather conditions.
Flights are priced at $350 or Rs.14,000 per passenger for an hour and the cost will include door-to-door pick up and drop service and snacks & beverages.
Sky Waltz - as the venture is named - will initially have two balloons with total seating capacity of eleven passengers.
Targeting high spending Indian travellers, adventure sports enthusiasts and foreign tourists alike, Sky Waltz will launch the balloons from Amber Fort and surrounding areas.
Announcing the launch, Samit Garg, director, E-Factor Adventure Tourism (P) Ltd, said, the venture is 'for Indian and foreign tourists alike as Jaipur is a prime tourist destination'.
'Initially, we are commencing service of two balloons but will be adding more balloons along with more locations in Rajasthan,' he said.
Navigated by experienced international pilots, the duration of each flight will be of one hour, with each balloon flying morning and evening, six days a week, depending on weather conditions.
Flights are priced at $350 or Rs.14,000 per passenger for an hour and the cost will include door-to-door pick up and drop service and snacks & beverages.
More on the Iowa incident.
FRANKLIN COUNTY, Iowa -- Two men died Friday in a balloon crash in northern Iowa.
Witnesses told police that the balloon hit the top power line before diving 65-feet onto a farm field around 9:15 a.m., southwest of the town of Coulter.
KCCI has learned that Dr. Tom Boylan, 62, and Bradley Brookhart, 37 from Littleton, Colo., died in the crash. Boylan is from Fort Collins, Colo., and had more than 20-years experience piloting balloons.
Rescue crews said Doug Chaplin, of Albuquerque, was flown by helicopter to Mercy Medical Center North Iowa in Mason City. Chaplin had serious injuries. His condition is unknown.
Police were able to talk to Chaplin who told them the crew was attempting to land when they hit the power line, but he wasn't able to explain why the crew was landing. Friday, he was listed in fair condition.
"For some reason (they) were coming down. We got witnesses that watched and as you can see there, they caught the top wire. And at that point the balloon and the basket separated, and it's about a 65 foot drop," Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier said.
The balloon top blew more than a mile north of the crash site.
Federal Aviation Administration investigators were headed to the scene to take over the investigation.
The Trip
The three men originally left Greeley, Colo., on Wednesday night and had an East Coast destination. Their balloon was loaded with gear and supplies for their cross-country trip.
A second balloon that left Colorado on Wednesday was also reported traveling over Iowa Friday. That balloon was piloted by Troy Bradley, of Albuquerque, who was trying to set a a world record flight for distance and duration for the AM-3 balloon. The balloon mixes hot air and helium.
A website tracking Bradley's progress last reported him near Omaha on Nov. 14.
Friends confirm to KCCI that Bradley's balloon landed safely in southern Wisconsin at around 5:09 p.m. Friday.
A Colorado newspaper, The Greeley Tribune, reported that Bradley "easily broke the world duration record, which was 27.5 hours and by Friday morning had been in the air more than 30 hours."
Dr. Tom Boylan
“All of a sudden there was a lot of chatter about a balloon accident this morning and when I heard of the fatalities, I thought that may be Dr. Tom,” Frank Wechter said.
Hours later, Wechter learned it was his friend.
The two pilots met in 2001 flying in the America's Challenge in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since then they have flown together on trips all over the country.
Wechter sent KCCI a picture of Boylan in his gas balloon "The Sandman" which he said was likely the balloon involved in Friday's crash.
“Gas ballooning is extreme ballooning because unlike hot air balloons which fly one to two hours, gas balloons are one to three to four days, and you encounter weather,” Wechter said.
Ballooning was something Wechter said his friend loved to do in his free time. Dr. Boylan lived in Fort Collins, Colo., and worked as a pain management doctor.
“The man was sympathetic to people and so he was a people person and he loved his wife and love his daughter, Marilyn,” Wechter said.
Wechter said Boylan was in his mid-fifties and had every intention of flying for years to come.
“He was certainly not a man who would choose to die now, but in terms of living and dying, I think probably he died in the fashion living the way he wanted to,” Wechter said.
Witnesses told police that the balloon hit the top power line before diving 65-feet onto a farm field around 9:15 a.m., southwest of the town of Coulter.
KCCI has learned that Dr. Tom Boylan, 62, and Bradley Brookhart, 37 from Littleton, Colo., died in the crash. Boylan is from Fort Collins, Colo., and had more than 20-years experience piloting balloons.
Rescue crews said Doug Chaplin, of Albuquerque, was flown by helicopter to Mercy Medical Center North Iowa in Mason City. Chaplin had serious injuries. His condition is unknown.
Police were able to talk to Chaplin who told them the crew was attempting to land when they hit the power line, but he wasn't able to explain why the crew was landing. Friday, he was listed in fair condition.
"For some reason (they) were coming down. We got witnesses that watched and as you can see there, they caught the top wire. And at that point the balloon and the basket separated, and it's about a 65 foot drop," Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier said.
The balloon top blew more than a mile north of the crash site.
Federal Aviation Administration investigators were headed to the scene to take over the investigation.
The Trip
The three men originally left Greeley, Colo., on Wednesday night and had an East Coast destination. Their balloon was loaded with gear and supplies for their cross-country trip.
A second balloon that left Colorado on Wednesday was also reported traveling over Iowa Friday. That balloon was piloted by Troy Bradley, of Albuquerque, who was trying to set a a world record flight for distance and duration for the AM-3 balloon. The balloon mixes hot air and helium.
A website tracking Bradley's progress last reported him near Omaha on Nov. 14.
Friends confirm to KCCI that Bradley's balloon landed safely in southern Wisconsin at around 5:09 p.m. Friday.
A Colorado newspaper, The Greeley Tribune, reported that Bradley "easily broke the world duration record, which was 27.5 hours and by Friday morning had been in the air more than 30 hours."
Dr. Tom Boylan
“All of a sudden there was a lot of chatter about a balloon accident this morning and when I heard of the fatalities, I thought that may be Dr. Tom,” Frank Wechter said.
Hours later, Wechter learned it was his friend.
The two pilots met in 2001 flying in the America's Challenge in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Since then they have flown together on trips all over the country.
Wechter sent KCCI a picture of Boylan in his gas balloon "The Sandman" which he said was likely the balloon involved in Friday's crash.
“Gas ballooning is extreme ballooning because unlike hot air balloons which fly one to two hours, gas balloons are one to three to four days, and you encounter weather,” Wechter said.
Ballooning was something Wechter said his friend loved to do in his free time. Dr. Boylan lived in Fort Collins, Colo., and worked as a pain management doctor.
“The man was sympathetic to people and so he was a people person and he loved his wife and love his daughter, Marilyn,” Wechter said.
Wechter said Boylan was in his mid-fifties and had every intention of flying for years to come.
“He was certainly not a man who would choose to die now, but in terms of living and dying, I think probably he died in the fashion living the way he wanted to,” Wechter said.
Iowa balloon crash kills local doctor
Seems like this is the best place to leave condolences.
A difficult time for all three families, from the reactions on the site, Dr Boylan was much loved in the community he served.
http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071117/NEWS01/711170363/1002/CUSTOMERSERVICE02
Iowa balloon crash kills local doctorBY MILES BLUMHARDT MilesBlumhardt@coloradoan.com
Fort Collins balloonist Dr. Tom Boylan and a Littleton man died and one man was injured when their helium balloon hit a power line Friday morning and crashed in north-central Iowa.
Boylan, 62, an osteopathic physician at Front Range Pain Medicine, 3744 S. Timberline Road, was pronounced dead at the scene, as was Bradley Brookhart, 37, of Littleton. Doug Chaplin, 58, of Albuquerque, N.M., was listed in fair condition Friday night at a hospital in Mason City, Iowa.
Reached on her cell phone late Friday afternoon, Boylan's wife, Margo, said she had no comment.
Shannon White, co-owner of Mountain Breeze Ballooning in Fort Collins, said he would have likely been in the balloon basket with Boylan had his wife passed on the message Boylan left on their answering machine Tuesday asking White to join him.
"I'd probably be dead right now," White said. "She just forgot to pass along the message. Usually she is on the ball about that. I think my angels were looking out for me. That's all I can figure because I'm sure I would have been right there. It's not my nature to turn down a flight."
The balloon was descending when it hit the line around 8:15 a.m. MDT. The balloon and the basket separated and the basket fell 60 feet to the ground, Franklin County Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier said. Residents who had come out of their house to wave at the balloonists saw it hit the power line, called 911 and rushed to the scene, Richtsmeier said. They found the basket on its side in the pasture, about three miles southwest of Coulter, which is about 85 miles north of Des Moines.
Fort Collins resident Bob McCluskey, who had known Boylan about 20 years, said he had flown with him and called Boylan a "very conservative pilot."
"He didn't take a lot of chances," McCluskey said, who also called Boylan "a great mentor for me."
On Friday morning, there were high scattered clouds and winds of 15 to 20 mph, Richtsmeier said. Investigators from the sheriff's office were at the scene Friday afternoon and officials from the Federal Aviation Administration had arrived to assist in the investigation.
"Sometimes, with that wind, you get stuck in a situation that has bad consequences," McCluskey said.
According to a phone call Boylan made to the Coloradoan on Tuesday inquiring about the possibility of coverage of his flight, he and a friend, Troy Bradley, were going to launch two balloons from Greeley on Wednesday evening. Boylan said he was going on a training flight.
Paperwork found in one of the men’s pockets indicated they had left Greeley on Wednesday and spent Thursday night in the Omaha, Neb., area. They were flying beneath a helium balloon, rather than a more common hot air balloon inflated by air warmed by propane burners.
White, of Mountain Breeze Ballooning, said helium balloons are more difficult to control than hot air balloons. Helium balloons only have ballasts to release to adjust elevation. Hot air balloons have ballasts and heated air blowing into the balloon to adjust elevation.
Boylan had more than 20 years of experience piloting balloons,
“It takes a lot of time for a helium balloon to respond,” White said. “I’m sure that had a lot to with it.”
White said Boylan was an excellent pilot who was respected and willing to help others. He never flew with Boylan in his basket but went to events where Boylan flew.
“My best memories of Tom were up at Snowmass,” White said. “We used to tailgate after flying and it was a lot of fun. He was a great guy. It’s like losing a family member.”
A difficult time for all three families, from the reactions on the site, Dr Boylan was much loved in the community he served.
http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071117/NEWS01/711170363/1002/CUSTOMERSERVICE02
Iowa balloon crash kills local doctorBY MILES BLUMHARDT MilesBlumhardt@coloradoan.com
Fort Collins balloonist Dr. Tom Boylan and a Littleton man died and one man was injured when their helium balloon hit a power line Friday morning and crashed in north-central Iowa.
Boylan, 62, an osteopathic physician at Front Range Pain Medicine, 3744 S. Timberline Road, was pronounced dead at the scene, as was Bradley Brookhart, 37, of Littleton. Doug Chaplin, 58, of Albuquerque, N.M., was listed in fair condition Friday night at a hospital in Mason City, Iowa.
Reached on her cell phone late Friday afternoon, Boylan's wife, Margo, said she had no comment.
Shannon White, co-owner of Mountain Breeze Ballooning in Fort Collins, said he would have likely been in the balloon basket with Boylan had his wife passed on the message Boylan left on their answering machine Tuesday asking White to join him.
"I'd probably be dead right now," White said. "She just forgot to pass along the message. Usually she is on the ball about that. I think my angels were looking out for me. That's all I can figure because I'm sure I would have been right there. It's not my nature to turn down a flight."
The balloon was descending when it hit the line around 8:15 a.m. MDT. The balloon and the basket separated and the basket fell 60 feet to the ground, Franklin County Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier said. Residents who had come out of their house to wave at the balloonists saw it hit the power line, called 911 and rushed to the scene, Richtsmeier said. They found the basket on its side in the pasture, about three miles southwest of Coulter, which is about 85 miles north of Des Moines.
Fort Collins resident Bob McCluskey, who had known Boylan about 20 years, said he had flown with him and called Boylan a "very conservative pilot."
"He didn't take a lot of chances," McCluskey said, who also called Boylan "a great mentor for me."
On Friday morning, there were high scattered clouds and winds of 15 to 20 mph, Richtsmeier said. Investigators from the sheriff's office were at the scene Friday afternoon and officials from the Federal Aviation Administration had arrived to assist in the investigation.
"Sometimes, with that wind, you get stuck in a situation that has bad consequences," McCluskey said.
According to a phone call Boylan made to the Coloradoan on Tuesday inquiring about the possibility of coverage of his flight, he and a friend, Troy Bradley, were going to launch two balloons from Greeley on Wednesday evening. Boylan said he was going on a training flight.
Paperwork found in one of the men’s pockets indicated they had left Greeley on Wednesday and spent Thursday night in the Omaha, Neb., area. They were flying beneath a helium balloon, rather than a more common hot air balloon inflated by air warmed by propane burners.
White, of Mountain Breeze Ballooning, said helium balloons are more difficult to control than hot air balloons. Helium balloons only have ballasts to release to adjust elevation. Hot air balloons have ballasts and heated air blowing into the balloon to adjust elevation.
Boylan had more than 20 years of experience piloting balloons,
“It takes a lot of time for a helium balloon to respond,” White said. “I’m sure that had a lot to with it.”
White said Boylan was an excellent pilot who was respected and willing to help others. He never flew with Boylan in his basket but went to events where Boylan flew.
“My best memories of Tom were up at Snowmass,” White said. “We used to tailgate after flying and it was a lot of fun. He was a great guy. It’s like losing a family member.”
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Coulter, Iowa, said to be a gas balloon??
COULTER, Iowa (AP) - Authorities have identified the two men killed when a helium-powered balloon hit a power line and crashed in north-central Iowa yesterday.
They are 62-year-old Thomas Boylan of Fort Collins, Colorado, and 37-year-old Bradley Brookhart of Littleton, Colorado.
Injured was 58-year-old Doug Chaplin of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was in fair condition at a hospital.
Franklin County Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier says the balloon was descending when it struck a power line, separating the balloon and the basket. The basket then fell 60 feet to the ground in a cattle pasture.
Richtsmeier says paperwork found in 1 of the men's pockets indicated they had spent the night before in the Omaha, Nebraska, area.
They are 62-year-old Thomas Boylan of Fort Collins, Colorado, and 37-year-old Bradley Brookhart of Littleton, Colorado.
Injured was 58-year-old Doug Chaplin of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was in fair condition at a hospital.
Franklin County Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier says the balloon was descending when it struck a power line, separating the balloon and the basket. The basket then fell 60 feet to the ground in a cattle pasture.
Richtsmeier says paperwork found in 1 of the men's pockets indicated they had spent the night before in the Omaha, Nebraska, area.
Iowa Balloon Accident
COULTER — The Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) is en route to rural Franklin County where two men from the western U.S. were killed this morning when their hot air balloon crashed near Coulter.A third man was injured and was taken to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa, Mason City, for treatment.No names of the victims are available at this time.Franklin County Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier said onlookers saw the balloon in the sky and saw it separate from the basket about 65 feet above the ground.The accident was reported at 9:15 a.m. and happened three miles west of Coulter, near the junction of Finch Avenue and 110th Street.Authorities at the scene included the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department, Iowa State Patrol, Franklin medical examiner, Coulter Fire Department, West Franklin EMS and Franklin County Hospital.
Friday, November 16, 2007
More sad hot air balloon news
Its with heavy heart that I report yet more fatalities this year.
Perhaps 2007 will go down as one of the worst years ever for hot air balloon accidents.
My mind can instantly think of a couple of incidents in the past that involved large balloons so the numbers of deceased were realitively high in single incidents. I don't think I can remember a year in which so many individual incidents caused so many fatalities.
Thoughts and condolences to the families involved.
2 dead in hot air balloon crash near Hampton
HAMPTON, Iowa (AP) Two people were killed and a third person injured Friday after the hot air balloon they were in crashed in north-central Iowa.
Franklin County Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier said the names of the people who were killed and the person who was hurt wouldn't be immediately released. He also declined to identify where they are from.
The balloon was descending when it struck a power line about 9:15 a.m., he said.
The balloon and the basket separated and the basket fell 60 feet to the ground in a farm field southwest of Hampton, the sheriff said.
Investigators from the sheriff's office remained at the scene and officials from the Federal Aviation Administration had arrived to assist in the investigation.
The passengers who were killed died at the scene. The third person was flown by helicopter to a Mason City hospital. That person's condition wasn't immediately known.
Perhaps 2007 will go down as one of the worst years ever for hot air balloon accidents.
My mind can instantly think of a couple of incidents in the past that involved large balloons so the numbers of deceased were realitively high in single incidents. I don't think I can remember a year in which so many individual incidents caused so many fatalities.
Thoughts and condolences to the families involved.
2 dead in hot air balloon crash near Hampton
HAMPTON, Iowa (AP) Two people were killed and a third person injured Friday after the hot air balloon they were in crashed in north-central Iowa.
Franklin County Sheriff Larry Richtsmeier said the names of the people who were killed and the person who was hurt wouldn't be immediately released. He also declined to identify where they are from.
The balloon was descending when it struck a power line about 9:15 a.m., he said.
The balloon and the basket separated and the basket fell 60 feet to the ground in a farm field southwest of Hampton, the sheriff said.
Investigators from the sheriff's office remained at the scene and officials from the Federal Aviation Administration had arrived to assist in the investigation.
The passengers who were killed died at the scene. The third person was flown by helicopter to a Mason City hospital. That person's condition wasn't immediately known.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Blimey its easy to set up over there, Vickers Ballooning
Good luck to them, obviously they did'nt need to go through the pain of an AOC!!!
Best wishes for your new Venture, Vickers Ballooning!!!!
New business goes up up and away over DelmarvaVickers' Ballooning takes hobby to new heightsBy Molly MacMillan Staff Writer
John King photoMembers of Vickers Ballooning Company in Dagsboro stand in front of their basket. From left is Ken Gerard, and owners Lori and Louis Vickers.
Lou and Lori Vickers are full of hot air -- literally.
Their business, Vickers' Ballooning, LLC is approaching its fifth month of operation and the owners are flying high now that they've morphed their hobby into their livelihood.
"I took my first flight in August and two weeks later I was enrolled in flight school," Lou said.
Lou said he took his sister on a hot air balloon ride in August 2006 to celebrate her birthday and found the experience so enjoyable he decided to pursue a pilot's license for himself.
Less than two weeks after his first flight, Vickers was enrolled in classes to become a hot air balloon pilot. Less than one year after his fateful flight, Vickers purchased a seven-story hot air balloon and began Vickers' Ballooning outside of Dagsboro.
"People can't believe how fast I caught on," he said. "I became a pilot in two weeks."
The couple view their vocation as an element of the entertainment industry. They serve a variety of snacks and offer a champagne toast at the end of each flight.
"It's a new adventure," Lori said. "In this business we can cater to people and show them a really over-the-top experience they wouldn't be able to find anywhere else."
The Vickers said a flight is a great way to celebrate a birthday or a personal achievement, fulfill a dream, or even get engaged -- though they have yet to fly a "big question" flight. The company offers gift certificates also.
Connie Frey was recently treated to a flight for her birthday, despite her fear of heights.
"It was phenomenal," she said. "The flight was very calm and peaceful and it was a gradual rise so you don't really feel anything."
Lori is also afraid of heights, but described the experience as "zen-like."
"It's very calm-- you don't feel the wind and you ride where it takes you," she said. "It's quiet and close to nature and you see the world from a different perspective."
mmacmillan@dmg.gannett.com
Best wishes for your new Venture, Vickers Ballooning!!!!
New business goes up up and away over DelmarvaVickers' Ballooning takes hobby to new heightsBy Molly MacMillan Staff Writer
John King photoMembers of Vickers Ballooning Company in Dagsboro stand in front of their basket. From left is Ken Gerard, and owners Lori and Louis Vickers.
Lou and Lori Vickers are full of hot air -- literally.
Their business, Vickers' Ballooning, LLC is approaching its fifth month of operation and the owners are flying high now that they've morphed their hobby into their livelihood.
"I took my first flight in August and two weeks later I was enrolled in flight school," Lou said.
Lou said he took his sister on a hot air balloon ride in August 2006 to celebrate her birthday and found the experience so enjoyable he decided to pursue a pilot's license for himself.
Less than two weeks after his first flight, Vickers was enrolled in classes to become a hot air balloon pilot. Less than one year after his fateful flight, Vickers purchased a seven-story hot air balloon and began Vickers' Ballooning outside of Dagsboro.
"People can't believe how fast I caught on," he said. "I became a pilot in two weeks."
The couple view their vocation as an element of the entertainment industry. They serve a variety of snacks and offer a champagne toast at the end of each flight.
"It's a new adventure," Lori said. "In this business we can cater to people and show them a really over-the-top experience they wouldn't be able to find anywhere else."
The Vickers said a flight is a great way to celebrate a birthday or a personal achievement, fulfill a dream, or even get engaged -- though they have yet to fly a "big question" flight. The company offers gift certificates also.
Connie Frey was recently treated to a flight for her birthday, despite her fear of heights.
"It was phenomenal," she said. "The flight was very calm and peaceful and it was a gradual rise so you don't really feel anything."
Lori is also afraid of heights, but described the experience as "zen-like."
"It's very calm-- you don't feel the wind and you ride where it takes you," she said. "It's quiet and close to nature and you see the world from a different perspective."
mmacmillan@dmg.gannett.com
Love this, Champagne related foolery
1. The problem statement, all variables and given/known dataA hot air balloon rises from the ground with a velocity of (2.0m/s)y. A champagne bottle is opened to celebrate takeoff, expelling the cork horizontally with a velocity of (5.0m/s)x. When opened, the bottle is 6 m above the ground. a) What is the initial velocity of the cork, as seen by an observer on the ground? What is the speed of the cork, and its initial direction of motion, as seen by the same observer? b) Determine the maximum height above the ground attained by the cork. c) how long does the cork remain in the air?
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=198392
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=198392
Monday, November 12, 2007
Steve Fosset Amazon Mechanical Turk search called off.
Stephen HutcheonNovember 9, 2007 - 9:50AM
Two months after adventurer Steve Fossett disappeared over the Nevada desert, the plug has been pulled on an experimental online search mission that harnessed the collective efforts of some 50,000 volunteers around the world.
Last week, without warning, online retailer Amazon.com shut down the collaborative search it began hosting just days after the 63-year-old aviator failed to return from a routine flight on September 3.
Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) site enabled volunteers to pore over high-resolution photographs covering parts of the 44,000 square kilometres of uninhabited wilderness where the physical search mission has been taking place.
The decision to wrap it up was made, according to Amazon spokeswoman Kay Kinton, in consultation with the official Fossett search team on the ground, which is now pinning its hopes on computer-aided image-scanning technology.
It came exactly four weeks after the US Civil Air Patrol ended what it said was "one of the largest, most intensive searches for a missing aircraft in modern history".
The online component of the search reached a similar scale. "Tens of thousands of people participated in the [online] search overall", Kinton said in an email, with "several thousand" participating on any given day,
The Amazon decision, however, came as a surprise to Kenneth Barbalace, an internet publisher from Portland in the US state of Maine who had been scanning the satellite images posted on MTurk since day one.
"We had just gotten all the tools in place for it to become really effective and then they cut us off," he said in a telephone interview.
An enthusiastic supporter of the online effort, Barbalace spent between 10 to 14 hours a day examining images on is computer during the first few weeks after Fossett went missing. Overall, he perused 25,500 photos over eight weeks.
He considers this exercise to be one of the "noble uses of the internet" and has mused on his blog about how enabling volunteers to scour the landscape from their desks could one day revolutionise the practise of search and rescue.
But, in the early weeks of the Fossett search, he had to take a reality check. Poor coordination and communication, the use of images with less than optimal resolution and a large posse of well-meaning but uninformed helpers combined to hobble the online effort.
And according to Landis Bennett, a volunteer searcher from San Francisco who participated in both the physical and online missions, the experiment in mass collaboration even disrupted the official search effort on the ground.
"In the beginning, it was a lot along the lines of the boy who called wolf," Bennett said in a telephone interview.
To make matters worse, some of the online volunteers circumvented the protocol for reporting finds, opting to "go vigilante" - as Bennett put it - and convey their theories directly to the official search coordinators.
He recalled one incident where a man spotted something on a satellite image, insisting it was a strong lead in the search for Fossett's single-engine Bellanca Super Decathlon.
Bennett, who is also a cartographer, examined the image and concluded it was old data. "But we ended up going out just to keep everyone happy," he said.
The Amercians' take on the experience is supported by Kevin Pusey, the publican at the Grand Hotel in Kookynie, a mining town about 150km north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
Pusey is also one of 16 moderators on the Google Earth Community site and he monitored much of the conversation about the online search that was taking place on the forums.
A record number of comments - over 5000 - have been posted on the Steve Fosset thread on the Google Earth forums and Pusey observed that some people were "a bit pissed off" when Amazon pulled out.
Mechanical Turk - named after an 18th century chess-playing mannequin that was dressed in Turkish costume and controlled by a chess master secreted inside - is a site where people perform paid or unpaid tasks that cannot be adequately performed by computers.
It was first used in a similar search mission when Jim Gray, a renowned Microsoft computer scientist, went missing in his yacht in the seas off San Francisco in January. He was never found, but when Fossett disappeared, Amazon quickly put the MTurk experiment back into action.
Thousands of photographs, each representing about 85 square metres of the rugged Nevada terrain, were posted onto the Amazon site initially from data supplied by satellite imaging companies DigtialGlobe and GeoEye.
Anyone interested could sign up and participate in the search by overlaying the recent images onto the Google Earth program. This made it easier to scan the photos and check their findings against the reference point of older satellite shots.
The process of tapping a distributed knowledge base is known as crowdsourcing. It is similar to the way Wikipedia works, for instance. Entries in the online encyclopedia are the culmination of the efforts of many different contributors and editors.
The downside to crowdsourcing is that when every man and his dog jumps in, it can swamp the exercise. And that's exactly what happened in the Fossett search.
Both Barbalace and Bennett say because many volunteers had no idea what to look for, the process began to get overwhelmed with false positives.
"Let's just say that the signal-to-noise ratio was really not good enough to be of much use," said Bennett who flew a total of eight 2½- to 3½-hour sorties over the search zone as well as spending hours online.
The inadequate image resolution meant there was a lot of guessing going on. "People were reading into the imagery and seeing whatever it was they wanted to see," he said.
Like a poorly organised ground search, the online version was literally going around in circles.
Despite the initial hiccups, Barbalace said the experience was gained from the Fossett search could be used to improve the system the next time a similar opportunity arose.
And, even as Amazon was winding down its involvement, the fog was clearing. The searchers were better informed, there were fewer cowboys and the images were of a higher resolution.
"I'm sure [with some refinements] it could become a fantastic search tool," said Barbalace.
And Kevin Pusey pointed out that although the online searchers failed to find any trace of Steve Fossett, they did discover about half a dozen earlier crash sites - vindicating the theory that the wisdom of the crowds works ... sometimes.
Links:
:: Official Steve Fosset site
:: Landis Bennett's site
:: Kenneth Barbalace's site
:: The Google Earth Community Steve Fossett discussion thread
:: Mechanical Turk's Steve Fossett page
Two months after adventurer Steve Fossett disappeared over the Nevada desert, the plug has been pulled on an experimental online search mission that harnessed the collective efforts of some 50,000 volunteers around the world.
Last week, without warning, online retailer Amazon.com shut down the collaborative search it began hosting just days after the 63-year-old aviator failed to return from a routine flight on September 3.
Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) site enabled volunteers to pore over high-resolution photographs covering parts of the 44,000 square kilometres of uninhabited wilderness where the physical search mission has been taking place.
The decision to wrap it up was made, according to Amazon spokeswoman Kay Kinton, in consultation with the official Fossett search team on the ground, which is now pinning its hopes on computer-aided image-scanning technology.
It came exactly four weeks after the US Civil Air Patrol ended what it said was "one of the largest, most intensive searches for a missing aircraft in modern history".
The online component of the search reached a similar scale. "Tens of thousands of people participated in the [online] search overall", Kinton said in an email, with "several thousand" participating on any given day,
The Amazon decision, however, came as a surprise to Kenneth Barbalace, an internet publisher from Portland in the US state of Maine who had been scanning the satellite images posted on MTurk since day one.
"We had just gotten all the tools in place for it to become really effective and then they cut us off," he said in a telephone interview.
An enthusiastic supporter of the online effort, Barbalace spent between 10 to 14 hours a day examining images on is computer during the first few weeks after Fossett went missing. Overall, he perused 25,500 photos over eight weeks.
He considers this exercise to be one of the "noble uses of the internet" and has mused on his blog about how enabling volunteers to scour the landscape from their desks could one day revolutionise the practise of search and rescue.
But, in the early weeks of the Fossett search, he had to take a reality check. Poor coordination and communication, the use of images with less than optimal resolution and a large posse of well-meaning but uninformed helpers combined to hobble the online effort.
And according to Landis Bennett, a volunteer searcher from San Francisco who participated in both the physical and online missions, the experiment in mass collaboration even disrupted the official search effort on the ground.
"In the beginning, it was a lot along the lines of the boy who called wolf," Bennett said in a telephone interview.
To make matters worse, some of the online volunteers circumvented the protocol for reporting finds, opting to "go vigilante" - as Bennett put it - and convey their theories directly to the official search coordinators.
He recalled one incident where a man spotted something on a satellite image, insisting it was a strong lead in the search for Fossett's single-engine Bellanca Super Decathlon.
Bennett, who is also a cartographer, examined the image and concluded it was old data. "But we ended up going out just to keep everyone happy," he said.
The Amercians' take on the experience is supported by Kevin Pusey, the publican at the Grand Hotel in Kookynie, a mining town about 150km north of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.
Pusey is also one of 16 moderators on the Google Earth Community site and he monitored much of the conversation about the online search that was taking place on the forums.
A record number of comments - over 5000 - have been posted on the Steve Fosset thread on the Google Earth forums and Pusey observed that some people were "a bit pissed off" when Amazon pulled out.
Mechanical Turk - named after an 18th century chess-playing mannequin that was dressed in Turkish costume and controlled by a chess master secreted inside - is a site where people perform paid or unpaid tasks that cannot be adequately performed by computers.
It was first used in a similar search mission when Jim Gray, a renowned Microsoft computer scientist, went missing in his yacht in the seas off San Francisco in January. He was never found, but when Fossett disappeared, Amazon quickly put the MTurk experiment back into action.
Thousands of photographs, each representing about 85 square metres of the rugged Nevada terrain, were posted onto the Amazon site initially from data supplied by satellite imaging companies DigtialGlobe and GeoEye.
Anyone interested could sign up and participate in the search by overlaying the recent images onto the Google Earth program. This made it easier to scan the photos and check their findings against the reference point of older satellite shots.
The process of tapping a distributed knowledge base is known as crowdsourcing. It is similar to the way Wikipedia works, for instance. Entries in the online encyclopedia are the culmination of the efforts of many different contributors and editors.
The downside to crowdsourcing is that when every man and his dog jumps in, it can swamp the exercise. And that's exactly what happened in the Fossett search.
Both Barbalace and Bennett say because many volunteers had no idea what to look for, the process began to get overwhelmed with false positives.
"Let's just say that the signal-to-noise ratio was really not good enough to be of much use," said Bennett who flew a total of eight 2½- to 3½-hour sorties over the search zone as well as spending hours online.
The inadequate image resolution meant there was a lot of guessing going on. "People were reading into the imagery and seeing whatever it was they wanted to see," he said.
Like a poorly organised ground search, the online version was literally going around in circles.
Despite the initial hiccups, Barbalace said the experience was gained from the Fossett search could be used to improve the system the next time a similar opportunity arose.
And, even as Amazon was winding down its involvement, the fog was clearing. The searchers were better informed, there were fewer cowboys and the images were of a higher resolution.
"I'm sure [with some refinements] it could become a fantastic search tool," said Barbalace.
And Kevin Pusey pointed out that although the online searchers failed to find any trace of Steve Fossett, they did discover about half a dozen earlier crash sites - vindicating the theory that the wisdom of the crowds works ... sometimes.
Links:
:: Official Steve Fosset site
:: Landis Bennett's site
:: Kenneth Barbalace's site
:: The Google Earth Community Steve Fossett discussion thread
:: Mechanical Turk's Steve Fossett page
Friday, November 09, 2007
Wife to sue husband and Cameron Balloons Michigan over incident.
The Star-Ledger
FLEMINGTON A Phillipsburg woman who plunged 50 feet from a hot air balloon after dangling by her rope-tangled foot is now suing her husband and the balloon's manufacturer over the harrowing incident.
Kathleen Long filed the civil lawsuit less than two weeks ago in state Superior Court in Hunterdon County.
Kathleen Long sustained "substantial head injuries" when she plunged through a barn in Bethlehem Township and has not been able to return to work as a corporate executive, said her lawyer, Salvatore P. DiFazio.
"Clearly, the injuries she has sustained have been difficult for them," said DiFazio. "But they're still married" after 27 years.
Kathleen Long is simply protecting her rights, he explained.
DiFazio said liability in the wife's suit will be "apportioned" between both defendants. If the wife doesn't act, the manufacturer, Cameran Balloons of Michigan, is likely to file a third-party claim against the husband that "puts the principal blame on him," DiFazio said.
Andy Baird, general manager at Cameran Balloons, was unaware of Kathleen Long's suit, and declined to comment. Baird did say he knew about the Oct. 30, 2005, accident.
FLEMINGTON A Phillipsburg woman who plunged 50 feet from a hot air balloon after dangling by her rope-tangled foot is now suing her husband and the balloon's manufacturer over the harrowing incident.
Kathleen Long filed the civil lawsuit less than two weeks ago in state Superior Court in Hunterdon County.
Kathleen Long sustained "substantial head injuries" when she plunged through a barn in Bethlehem Township and has not been able to return to work as a corporate executive, said her lawyer, Salvatore P. DiFazio.
"Clearly, the injuries she has sustained have been difficult for them," said DiFazio. "But they're still married" after 27 years.
Kathleen Long is simply protecting her rights, he explained.
DiFazio said liability in the wife's suit will be "apportioned" between both defendants. If the wife doesn't act, the manufacturer, Cameran Balloons of Michigan, is likely to file a third-party claim against the husband that "puts the principal blame on him," DiFazio said.
Andy Baird, general manager at Cameran Balloons, was unaware of Kathleen Long's suit, and declined to comment. Baird did say he knew about the Oct. 30, 2005, accident.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Record Day for accidents at Albuquerque
With thanks to Carrie Smith who sent me the link
http://www.koat.com/video/10012094/index.html
Lots and lots of videos contained there with news of the Balloon Fiesta and accidents occuring.
The 911 calls from members of the public reporting the incidents were interesting.
Also the footage of the balloon that was involved in the fatality.
Not the place to speculate but it looked like there was plenty of room to deflate it beyond where it was stuck in wires.
Perhaps the American tradition of adding the time from when the burner is first lit to there flying time will be called into question and real flight time experience ie from when the balloon lifts from the ground to when it touches down, what everyone else does, will come into play.
Using my poor mathes, an American pilot that claims 2000 hours will actually have flown in the order of 1700 and a bit hours.
The bottom line is that avoidable sad accidents have occured yet again at Albuquerque.
G
http://www.koat.com/video/10012094/index.html
Lots and lots of videos contained there with news of the Balloon Fiesta and accidents occuring.
The 911 calls from members of the public reporting the incidents were interesting.
Also the footage of the balloon that was involved in the fatality.
Not the place to speculate but it looked like there was plenty of room to deflate it beyond where it was stuck in wires.
Perhaps the American tradition of adding the time from when the burner is first lit to there flying time will be called into question and real flight time experience ie from when the balloon lifts from the ground to when it touches down, what everyone else does, will come into play.
Using my poor mathes, an American pilot that claims 2000 hours will actually have flown in the order of 1700 and a bit hours.
The bottom line is that avoidable sad accidents have occured yet again at Albuquerque.
G
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Another Albuquerque Accident
From MSN
Is it just me, and I am going to flamed for this, is Albuquerque the most dangerous balloon festival in the world??
Why on earth did this guy have a six month pregnant woman on board!!
http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&fg=rss&vid=66facfcc-3a41-439f-9654-23a19cdec1a8&from=05
Is it just me, and I am going to flamed for this, is Albuquerque the most dangerous balloon festival in the world??
Why on earth did this guy have a six month pregnant woman on board!!
http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-us&fg=rss&vid=66facfcc-3a41-439f-9654-23a19cdec1a8&from=05
Video showing tank falling from Alburquerque balloon
Not sure what happened but this tank clearly is ripped out or the floor collapses.
Check the guy at the end of the clip putting his hand through the floor, and at the beginning all the debris flying out as the tank falls. Sounds like the poor lady fell out of the resulting hole.
No doubt more will be forthcoming but it certainly explains why the final landing was not being piloted at all.
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.php?startID=105286
G
Check the guy at the end of the clip putting his hand through the floor, and at the beginning all the debris flying out as the tank falls. Sounds like the poor lady fell out of the resulting hole.
No doubt more will be forthcoming but it certainly explains why the final landing was not being piloted at all.
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.php?startID=105286
G
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Final landing of Albuquerque balloon filmed
Its no wonder everyone else was injured in that crash.
Take a look at the final touch down, here..
http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=80dc047e-c9bd-42c8-9af4-77b1e3ec7027
Take a look at the final touch down, here..
http://www.abc2news.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=80dc047e-c9bd-42c8-9af4-77b1e3ec7027
Albuquerque Accident
California woman dies in balloon accident in New Mexico
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.
A California woman fell at least 70 feet to her death Monday and three other women were hospitalized, two with broken legs, after a hot air balloon they were aboard snagged a utility line during the city's annual balloon fiesta.
The woman who died and the other three women were from Oceanside, Calif., north of San Diego.
"Our balloon community is a close-knit family and a time like this is difficult for all of us," said Gary Bennett, president of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.
The balloon named "Heavenly Ride" became caught on a utility line at 7:45 a.m. The pilot threw down a tether to a pickup truck on the ground in an apparent attempt to reel the balloon down and free it, a state police spokesman said.
But the tether broke and the balloon bounced back up, causing its gondola to tip. The woman fell more than 70 feet.
"It probably was a lot higher than that," state police Sgt. Kevin Bruno said. "That's just an estimate."
Paramedics tried to revive the woman, Rosemary Wooley Phillips, 60, in a dirt field where she fell. She was pronounced dead a short time later at University of New Mexico Hospital.
Bill Birkley of Albuquerque was driving to visit a client when he saw the balloon flying low and fast, then getting snagged in the utility line "like a fish hook."
He stopped his vehicle and was standing about 100 feet from the trapped balloon when he saw Phillips fall.
"She was screaming and flailing her arms," Birkley said. "It was the most helpless feeling in the world. There she was, coming down through the air, and there wasn't a thing you could do for her."
The balloon, meanwhile, came free and drifted across a road near Interstate 25. It crash-landed, inflicting injuries on the other passengers and a pilot. Bruno said two women had broken legs and another had minor bumps and bruises.
The three were admitted to University Hospital, he said. The pilot sustained minor scratches and was treated at the scene.
The women booked the flight through Rainbow Ryders, a concessionaire contracted to provide flights from the fiesta's launch field.
A company official, Scott Appleman, said pilot Tom Reyes had 30 years' experience and more than 1,900 flying hours.
Authorities were careful not to assign immediate blame on winds, saying an investigation was continuing. Yet hot air balloons, which don't have engines like an airplane or helicopter, are entirely subject to the wind.
"Wind is part of the unknown. Weather is part of the unknown, relative to hot air ballooning, all the time," Appleman said.
The crash site is about three miles south of the launch field, where flights were halted later in the morning after winds exceeded the maximum allowed 10 knots.
Organizers said the crash had no relation to the decision to halt flights. Meteorologists monitor weather conditions each day and information is presented to pilots, who otherwise can decide if they'll launch.
"If the wind gets to a certain level, 10 knots, then we'll stop operations," fiesta executive director Paul Smith said.
At the launch field, balloonists expressed condolences for the victim's family.
"It puts a bit of a cloud over the fiesta," said pilot Chris Hinde of Rugby, England, flying in Albuquerque for the 10th year. "People always ask if we should keep going. We made the decision not to fly today after we heard the news."
One woman was killed during the 1998 event when a balloon plowed into two sets of power lines before plummeting about 30 feet to the ground at Kirtland Air Force Base on Albuquerque's south side.
During the 1993 fiesta, two men were killed when their balloon hit power lines, severing the gondola, which plunged about 90 feet to the ground. Two other men died during the 1990 fiesta when their balloon crashed into power lines and burst into flames.
Four people died and five were injured during the 1982 fiesta when propane tanks on a large balloon exploded.
Balloonists, however, say such fatalities are rare and that their sport is not particularly dangerous.
"It's no riskier than driving a car," said pilot Anthony Haynes of Houston. "It's a sad thing when it happens. But when you see a car accident, you don't stop driving."
The fiesta, meanwhile, remained on schedule and a telephone recording at Rainbow Ryders said all flights would take off Tuesday as planned.
"All we can do is be safe in our planning and execution as best we know how," Bennett said.
___
On the Net:
Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta: http://www.balloonfiesta.com
___
Associated Press Writer Melanie Dabovich contributed to this report.
Published: Monday, October 8, 2007 16:17 PDT
Balloon Crashes
Amazing how Google works, yesterdays fatal accident at Albert Turkey has started throwing up the following link.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/279/13/1011.pdf
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/279/13/1011.pdf
Monday, October 08, 2007
Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta death
Woman killed in balloon crash in Albuquerque 12:20 PM CT
12:35 PM CDT on Monday, October 8, 2007
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A woman participating in the city's annual balloon festival fell from the tipped basket of a hot air balloon Monday, and plunged 60 to 70 feet to her death, state police said.
State police spokesman Andrew Tingwall identified the victim, one of five people aboard the balloon's gondola, as Rosemary Wooley Phillips, 60, of California. He did not have a hometown.
The balloon became stuck on a fiberoptic line about 9 a.m. Dallas time, and the pilot, Tom Reyes, 57, of Sandia Park threw a tether to a pickup truck on the ground to reel the balloon down and free it, Tingwall said.
However, the tether broke and the balloon flew back up, causing its gondola to tip and the woman to fall out, Tingwall said.
Emergency medical technicians tried to revive her in a dirt field where she fell, but were unsuccessful, he said.
The balloon, meanwhile, flew across a road near Interstate 25 and crash landed, he said.
The balloon, flying in the 36th annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, also carried Sheryl Diaz, 60; Susan Simpson, 57; and Doris Currier, 52, all of California.
Tingwall had no information about any injuries to the others aboard.
The crash site is about three miles from the launch field for the nine-day ballooning fiesta, which takes place every October and draws hundreds of balloons. The fiesta features mass ascensions of balloons, events for special shapes balloons and competitions for pilots.
There have been fatalities in previous years.
One woman was killed during the 1998 fiesta when a balloon plowed into two sets of power lines before plummeting about 30 feet to the ground at Kirtland Air Force Base on Albuquerque's south side.
During the 1993 fiesta, two men were killed when their balloon hit power lines, severing the gondola, which plunged about 90 feet to the ground.
Two other men died during the 1990 fiesta when their balloon crashed into power lines and burst into flames.
Four people died and five were injured during the 1982 fiesta when propane tanks on a large balloon exploded.
Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta
Aftermath video clip here, no sound.
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=6501
Condolences, lets hope the enquiry is accurate.
http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=6501
Condolences, lets hope the enquiry is accurate.
Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta death
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A hot air balloon pilot tried to free his craft after it became stuck Monday, but the balloon’s basket tipped, throwing out a female passenger who fell as much as 70 feet and died, police said.
The balloon got stuck on a fiberoptic line running above a power line about 8 a.m. during an annual balloon festival. The pilot threw down a tether to a pickup truck on the ground to reel the balloon down and free it, state police spokesman Andrew Tingwall said.
The tether broke, and the balloon flew back up, causing its gondola to tip and the woman to fall about 60 to 70 feet to the ground, Tingwall said.
Paramedics tried to revive the woman in a dirt field where she fell, but were unsuccessful, he said. The balloon, meanwhile, flew across a road near Interstate 25 and crash landed, Tingwall said.
The unidentified woman who died was one of four passengers. Tingwall did not know the conditions of the other three passengers or the pilot.
The crash site is about three miles from the launch site for the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, a nine-day event that began Saturday and features mass ascensions of balloons, events for special shaped balloons and competitions for pilots.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Steve Fossett
New York Times
October 4, 2007 By Steve Friess
LAS VEGAS, Oct. 3 — The Air Force destroyed all records from unsuccessful searches for aircraft missing before 1989, which is likely to make it much harder for Nevada investigators to determine the victims of three wrecks found in the recent search for the aviator Steve Fossett.
The planes were found in the Sierra Nevada region in the four-week search for Mr. Fossett, which was officially suspended on Tuesday without locating him or the single-engine plane in which he vanished on Sept. 3.
During the hunt through 20,000 square miles of rugged terrain in northern Nevada, searchers spotted three crashed planes that had never been noticed. Now that the Fossett search is over, the Civil Air Patrol and the Nevada Division of Emergency Management plan to return to those sites to investigate.
One resource that had been expected to help in the inquiry was “suspended mission files,” kept at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Fla. Those files are the paper trails of all failed searches for missing aircraft by the Civil Air Patrol, a volunteer Air Force auxiliary group, or any other Air Force resources.
But in 1994, the Air Force instituted a regulation requiring the destruction of records of noncombat missions after seven years. At that time, officials say, personnel at Tyndall destroyed suspended mission file records up to 1989.
Michael Strickler, a spokesman for the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, said, “In theory, we’re not supposed to have any records from anything past October 2000. Why we didn’t do that? I guess we just didn’t get around to it.”
Mr. Strickler said he did not know the reason for the regulation, which did not require Congressional approval. Calls to the Air Force division responsible for such regulations were not returned.
It is believed that the wreckages discovered in the Fossett search date back further than 1989, said a spokeswoman for the Civil Air Patrol Nevada Wing, Maj. Cynthia S. Ryan.
Major Ryan said she was stunned that the files were destroyed. The hope had been that, even if Mr. Fossett was not found, an exhaustive search would at least resolve other mysteries.
“That’s a little disheartening,” Major Ryan said. “They can transfer this stuff to microfilm. So what’s the problem? They’re keeping better track of your tax records.”
William C. Ogle of Gainesville, Fla., was among those disappointed about the destruction of the records. Mr. Ogle’s father, Charles Ogle, disappeared in 1964 after flying out of Oakland, Calif., for Reno in a single-engine plane.
“It sounds sort of dumb,” said Mr. Ogle, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida. “I don’t understand why they’d even do that. It sounds like some colonel or something probably got upset that there was too many files taking up too much space and said get rid of them.”
It is unlikely that the files were that voluminous. Of hundreds of search missions in the last decade, 18 ended without locating the target aircraft, according to Brig. Gen. Amy S. Courter, the air patrol’s acting national commander.
A spokesman for the Nevada Division of Emergency Management, Gary Derks, said he was less bothered by the destruction of the files because he was not convinced that they would resolve questions about the newly found wrecks.
At one point in the search for Mr. Fossett, officials thought that they had found as many as eight new wrecks. But Mr. Derks said some were spotted more than once, and others had been logged by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Initial surveying of the remaining three wrecks did not find human remains, Mr. Derks said.
“I suspect that in these cases the aircraft was located, the pilot was removed, and aircraft was left there,” Mr. Derks said. “Animals don’t eat shoes and pants. There would be something there to say a person was there.”
The Fossett search files will probably not be destroyed even if he is not found, because an Air Force regulation requires that cases “which have wide media coverage” or missions “having historical research interest” be sent to the National Archives after five years.
Mr. Fossett, 63, set more than 110 aviation records, including becoming the first person to complete a solo uninterrupted flight around the world in a hot-air balloon, and making the longest nonstop flight in aviation history.
He vanished while taking what was to be a short morning jaunt around the region surrounding a ranch 90 miles southeast of Reno owned by William Barron Hilton, the hotel magnate.
Mr. Fossett has yet to be declared presumed dead.
The Fossett and Hilton families continue to send out private search planes. Patrick H. Arbor, a close friend of Mr. Fossett and the former chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade, said, “It looks pretty hopeless,” but pointed to the extraordinary survival skills of Mr. Fossett, who is president of the National Eagle Scouts Association.
“If anyone on this earth could be out there crawling around surviving,” Mr. Arbor said, “it would be Steve.”
October 4, 2007 By Steve Friess
LAS VEGAS, Oct. 3 — The Air Force destroyed all records from unsuccessful searches for aircraft missing before 1989, which is likely to make it much harder for Nevada investigators to determine the victims of three wrecks found in the recent search for the aviator Steve Fossett.
The planes were found in the Sierra Nevada region in the four-week search for Mr. Fossett, which was officially suspended on Tuesday without locating him or the single-engine plane in which he vanished on Sept. 3.
During the hunt through 20,000 square miles of rugged terrain in northern Nevada, searchers spotted three crashed planes that had never been noticed. Now that the Fossett search is over, the Civil Air Patrol and the Nevada Division of Emergency Management plan to return to those sites to investigate.
One resource that had been expected to help in the inquiry was “suspended mission files,” kept at Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Fla. Those files are the paper trails of all failed searches for missing aircraft by the Civil Air Patrol, a volunteer Air Force auxiliary group, or any other Air Force resources.
But in 1994, the Air Force instituted a regulation requiring the destruction of records of noncombat missions after seven years. At that time, officials say, personnel at Tyndall destroyed suspended mission file records up to 1989.
Michael Strickler, a spokesman for the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, said, “In theory, we’re not supposed to have any records from anything past October 2000. Why we didn’t do that? I guess we just didn’t get around to it.”
Mr. Strickler said he did not know the reason for the regulation, which did not require Congressional approval. Calls to the Air Force division responsible for such regulations were not returned.
It is believed that the wreckages discovered in the Fossett search date back further than 1989, said a spokeswoman for the Civil Air Patrol Nevada Wing, Maj. Cynthia S. Ryan.
Major Ryan said she was stunned that the files were destroyed. The hope had been that, even if Mr. Fossett was not found, an exhaustive search would at least resolve other mysteries.
“That’s a little disheartening,” Major Ryan said. “They can transfer this stuff to microfilm. So what’s the problem? They’re keeping better track of your tax records.”
William C. Ogle of Gainesville, Fla., was among those disappointed about the destruction of the records. Mr. Ogle’s father, Charles Ogle, disappeared in 1964 after flying out of Oakland, Calif., for Reno in a single-engine plane.
“It sounds sort of dumb,” said Mr. Ogle, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at the University of Florida. “I don’t understand why they’d even do that. It sounds like some colonel or something probably got upset that there was too many files taking up too much space and said get rid of them.”
It is unlikely that the files were that voluminous. Of hundreds of search missions in the last decade, 18 ended without locating the target aircraft, according to Brig. Gen. Amy S. Courter, the air patrol’s acting national commander.
A spokesman for the Nevada Division of Emergency Management, Gary Derks, said he was less bothered by the destruction of the files because he was not convinced that they would resolve questions about the newly found wrecks.
At one point in the search for Mr. Fossett, officials thought that they had found as many as eight new wrecks. But Mr. Derks said some were spotted more than once, and others had been logged by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Initial surveying of the remaining three wrecks did not find human remains, Mr. Derks said.
“I suspect that in these cases the aircraft was located, the pilot was removed, and aircraft was left there,” Mr. Derks said. “Animals don’t eat shoes and pants. There would be something there to say a person was there.”
The Fossett search files will probably not be destroyed even if he is not found, because an Air Force regulation requires that cases “which have wide media coverage” or missions “having historical research interest” be sent to the National Archives after five years.
Mr. Fossett, 63, set more than 110 aviation records, including becoming the first person to complete a solo uninterrupted flight around the world in a hot-air balloon, and making the longest nonstop flight in aviation history.
He vanished while taking what was to be a short morning jaunt around the region surrounding a ranch 90 miles southeast of Reno owned by William Barron Hilton, the hotel magnate.
Mr. Fossett has yet to be declared presumed dead.
The Fossett and Hilton families continue to send out private search planes. Patrick H. Arbor, a close friend of Mr. Fossett and the former chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade, said, “It looks pretty hopeless,” but pointed to the extraordinary survival skills of Mr. Fossett, who is president of the National Eagle Scouts Association.
“If anyone on this earth could be out there crawling around surviving,” Mr. Arbor said, “it would be Steve.”
Funky Balloon
Check out the balloon!!
The paragliders well.....
The paragliders well.....
D-Bag off Hot Air Balloon
Posted Mar 26, 2006Dropping into a free fall after hanging tandem under a hot air balloon.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Has Technology abandoned Steve Fossett
ASSOCIATED PRESS
But the globe-circling adventurer's comrade appears to have turned fickle during and after a three-hour Labor Day jaunt. The aircraft borrowed from hotel magnate Barron Hilton, with whom he was staying in Smith Valley, carried an emergency locator transponder, or ELT, and the noted aviator often wore a special wristwatch that allowed him to signal his location in an emergency. But rescuers have heard nothing from either.
“Technology is a two-edged sword,” Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said. “I've heard a lot of people mentioning the fancy Breitling watch that he is probably wearing. That's great. His ELT is probably working just fine. But when you've got terrain like we have here, line-of-sight issues, bouncing off of canyon walls and not getting out, then you seriously diminish the ability of technology to do what it was designed to do.” Fossett's wife, Peggy, said she did not believe her husband was wearing the watch.
In addition, Ryan said the on-board emergency locator transmitter, or ELT, could have been disabled in a crash or if the plane ended up submerged. Or its battery might have been too low.
“It's not foolproof,” she said.
Nor, it seems, is the latest gadgetry for detecting heat or objects from the air.
In addition to scores of eyes in Civil Air Patrol planes that combed a vast swath of western Nevada for two weeks, listening in vain for the transmitter's ping, other aircraft used old-fashioned infrared and a sophisticated system new to search and rescue.
On Monday, two weeks after Fossett was last seen, the Nevada Wing of the Civil Air Patrol sent home all but two of its planes, which remain at the airport in Minden. On Wednesday, the Nevada National Guard's helicopters returned to their bases. The choppers and the two Civil Air Patrol planes remain on standby to respond to any new leads.
Searchers had held out high hopes for the technological newcomer ARCHER, which can “see” objects that don't belong in places like Nevada's other-world landscape – such as a piece of airplane.
“This is the kind of terrain that Archer was born and raised in and they want to put it through its paces and see just what it can do. These are optimal circumstances to test that system,” Ryan said during the search.
It was developed in the 1990s for scientific observation and military applications and refined for search and rescue by the military and Civil Air Patrol Col. Drew Alexa, Ryan said.
While the human eye typically detects three light bands, ARCHER – an acronym for Airborne Real-time Cueing Hyperspectral Enhanced Reconnaissance – can analyze 50. Mounted on the belly of a Civil Air Patrol plane, it transmits images to a monitor for instant analysis and captures the images for later use on the ground.
More traditional is infrared scanning, used on Nevada National Guard planes and helicopters to seek out a human being, even in the summertime furnace that is the Nevada desert.
“You look for different things in the daytime than in the nighttime. In the daytime you're looking for cooler whereas in the nighttime you're looking for hotter,” according to Col. Craig Wroblewski, director of operations for the Nevada Army and Air National Guard.
“In the daytime when the rocks are all sitting at 150 degrees, a human is going to show up cooler where at night the rocks cool down to 30-40 degrees, they're going to show a much darker signature than a human would.”
The Forward Looking Infrared, or FLIR on the Guard's C-130 airplane and its two UH-58 helicopters also has acute daytime eyesight.
“I've been in the helicopters down there in Las Vegas with their Forward Looking Infrared system and flying down the Strip. I've been able to zero in on somebody's license plate,” said Bill Burks, assistant adjutant general for the Nevada Air National Guard.
While the C-130 and the UH-58s initially flew daytime and nighttime sorties in the search for Fossett, they eventually were restricted to the daylight hours because of concerns about the number of planes flying in the area.
“Normally when we do a search and rescue with the helicopter, we're looking at a smaller area like in the Sierra or in Lyon County or some of our surrounding cow counties so we know right where our helicopters are searching,” Wroblewski said.
“We have a hard time at night when all the other aircraft are flying to make sure our pilots are safe. ... We think it's more safe to conduct the search during the daytime.”
In addition to the trained members of the Civil Air Patrol and the military, technology from Google and Amazon.com gave couch potatoes a chance to join the search.
Using a technique similar to the one that lets people find an aerial view of their house, amateur volunteers pored over high-resolution images of the rugged Nevada landscape where Fossett was thought to missing in an area twice the size of New Jersey.
The satellite images were taken within days of Fossett's disappearance, according to the Nevada National Guard, which used analysts to decipher possible sightings e-mailed by the public.
The images produced a lot of tips but no sign of the blue and white fabric-covered plane.
“Thousands of people have been sending in information,” Nevada Air National Guard Tech Sgt. Steven Snyder said. “When the Europeans get off work we get a bunch of e-mails. When the East Coasters get off work we get a bunch of e-mails.”
The Civil Air Patrol's Maj. Ryan said she doubted the technology available through Google or Amazon.com could match that of the government's satellite imagery.
And she said the discoveries of six planes that have been missing in Nevada for decades gives her hope that technological advances over the decades will help find Fossett's plane.
Still, Undersheriff Joe Sanford of Lyon County, where the airstrip Fossett used is located, is baffled that the adventurer's plane remains missing.
“We've got 2007 technology. ... that can count beer cans in the back of pickup. But we haven't found an airplane. That's what's frustrating,” Sanford said.
New Scientist extract, Steve Fossett
Internet volunteers transform search and rescue
- 26 September 2007
- Paul Marks
- Magazine issue 2623
FROM my viewpoint above the Nevada wilderness I'm scouring the landscape for signs of a missing aircraft. I'm searching for Steve Fossett, the millionaire, record-breaking aviator whose plane went missing on the Labor Day holiday.
If it were any other search I'd be in the cockpit of a search plane, but this time it's different. I'm sitting in front of my PC, 8000 kilometres away in London, sifting through satellite photos that I, like thousands of others, downloaded to take part in an internet-based search for the missing aviator.
As New Scientist went to press, Fossett's single-engine plane was still missing, and the Nevada Civil Air Patrol had scaled down the search. But the photos scoured by online volunteers helped to reveal eight other, older aircraft wrecks that surfaced and would otherwise have been lost in the 44,000-square-kilometre area, highlighting the potential of online "crowd-sourced" search. My experience ...
One last hope to find Steve Fossett
- New leads from Air Force experts have prompted Nevada authorities to restart the search this weekend for missing adventurer Steve Fossett in four counties near the Death Valley.
- The Nevada National Guard will not take part in the search.
- On the web, virtual searchers have been checking out satellite images for weeks.
New York. Did Steve Fossett’s (Photo Phil Romans) plane crash near the Death Valley on September 3? Sheriffs and volunteers will scan the ground in four Nevada counties this weekend to try to find the missing adventurer. New leads have prompted authorities to restart the search for Fossett. “Air Force experts analyzed data from military and civilian radars, said Chuck Allen, State Trooper with the Nevada Department of Public Safety. They made deductions and narrowed the search to an area of about 100 square miles”.
In Chicago, people at the stevefossett.com headquarters had no such information leading them to think that the missing businessman might be close to the Death Valley. “According to my people on the ground, these reports are false, said Brian Spaeth, a spokesman for the Fossett challenge. We will not take part in the operation this weekend”.
The search remains limited. The Nevada National Guard has stopped its own search-and-rescue mission on September 18 and will not fly again over the area highlighted by the U.S. Air Force experts. The hope to find Fossett alive is almost non-existent. “There is only so much a man on his own can do in the desert, said captain April Conway, spokeswoman for the Nevada National Guard. If he was alive, he would have signaled”.
Despite their inability to find any trace of the missing aviator, Fossett’s family and friends are not giving up their private search. On Tuesday September 25, a plane with sophisticated camera gear flew again over the desert. Thousands of Internet users have joined the online search for Fossett. Early in the rescue effort, billionaire Richard Branson, a friend of the missing aviator, got the help of Google Earth and Amazon.
Google quickly requested from its providers new satellite images of the zone, where Mr Fossett’s plane went missing. Google passed those images along to Amazon.com. And Amazon’s powerful tool divided an area of 10,000 square miles into smaller zones and assigned them to people, who signed up to help find the adventurer.
Captain Conway said the National Guard got emails all over the world and followed some leads. “At one one point, our folks were directly in contact with the people at Google Earth but the search was unsuccessful”.
In Chicago, Brain Spaeth said that 20 people keep exploring any inch of the satellite images to try to find a trace of the adventurer. “A lot of people responded to our calls for support, he said. But nothing came out of this. We did not find Steve”. The web search has limits too. “ The area where Mr Fossett went missing, is very hilly with deep valleys, Captain Conway concluded. There are canyons. If the plane crashed in one of them, it will not be visible from above”.
Jean-Cosme Delaloye
A French version of that story came out on September 27 in Tribune de Genève and 24heures in Switzerland.
New Leads in Search for Fossett
Wednesday September 26, 2007 3:46 AM
By BRENDAN RILEY
Associated Press Writer
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Relying on new leads from Air Force experts, crews looking for famed aviator Steve Fossett plan to comb a rugged area near Death Valley by air and foot, authorities said Tuesday.
Gary Derks, the state Department of Public Safety official in charge of the search, said the Air Force analyzed images picked up by radar and satellite and ``picked up what could be Mr. Fossett, his track.''
``It gives us an idea, if it's him, what direction he was going,'' Derks said of the wealthy adventurer, missing for more than three weeks.
Derks said the area stretches about 100 miles to the southeast from where Fossett took off Sept. 3, an airstrip on a million-acre ranch owned by hotel mogul Barron Hilton. Maps show the area would include Nevada's remote Silver Peak Range, close to Death Valley National Park in California.
``There's nothing definite, nothing concrete,'' Derks said. ``These are just some hits that we want to track.''
Search planes will fly over the area Saturday and Sunday, Derks said.
The area is ``very rough terrain,'' Derks said. ``If he's there, he's going to be hard to see. That's why we're sending in the ground search-and-rescue crews, too.''
A private search effort by Fossett's family and friends continued Tuesday when a plane with sophisticated camera gear took off from the ranch.
Fossett, 63, has not been seen since he left on what was supposed to be a short ride in a lightweight acrobatic plane to scout locations to break the land speed record.
The adventurer, who made millions as a commodities broker in Chicago, is the first person to circle the globe solo in a balloon. He has also swum the English Channel, completed the Iditarod sled dog race and scaled some of the world's best-known peaks.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Humpty Dumpty fell on a house
This photo, taken by Debra Manuel of Plano during this weekend's Plano Balloon Festival, makes it look like the Humpty Dumpty balloon fell on a home near Alma and Legacy Drive.
Here's what Debra had to say about her experience:
Humpty Dumpty really landed in the small intersection of that neighborhood, but when I saw the photo it appears to be on the house when you look at the hat. The balloon pilot was having a rough time - the crew wasn't around as he was touching down and the balloon was very close to the Victorian-style street light so I think he was a little concerned. He was yelling for some of the crew and they came running up as we were parking the car. There were a couple of bystanders that jumped in to help bring the balloon down.
Look for more Plano Balloon Festival photos at neighborsgo.com/photos. Also check out a video of assistant editor Emily Goldstein and me going up in a hot air balloon
Monday, September 24, 2007
Steve Fossett search ends.
I picked this one up at the weekend but have held of putting it here. Very few people reported this sad fact. Of the conspiracy theorys at the bottom I like the idea of him laughing at us whilst test flying a UFO!!From the Times online.
Wife clings to hope as Fossett hunt is halted
Tim Reid in Washington
Rescuers called off the search for the aviator Steve Fossett last night, 17 days after his light aircraft disappeared over the Nevada desert.
After 474 flights covering 20,000 square miles, the Nevada Civil Air Patrol sent its aircraft back to base and the state’s National Guard helicopters were grounded, having found no trace of Fossett or his light aircraft.
Fossett’s wife Peggy continues to fund a private search involving eight light aircraft, but with hopes fading of finding him, legal experts gave warning of a potential legal battle over his multimillion-dollar estate.
Under the law in California, where Fossett lived, it could take at least five years before his family can have him declared dead. Without a death certificate his estate, estimated at over $50 million, cannot be administered.
Members of Fossett’s adventuring team in Chicago insisted last night that the private search would continue “until we find him”. They are being helped by internet users around the world who are examining live images of the Nevada terrain provided by Google. Brigadier General Amy Courter, of the Civil Air Patrol, said she had seen cases in which “people have survived much longer than this”. But her patrol is no longer actively looking for him.
Fossett, 63, the first person to circumnavigate the globe solo in a balloon and the holder of 115 aviation, speed and endurance records, disappeared on September 3 after taking off in a single-engine plane from a private airstrip to seek a site for a world land speed record attempt.
Dennis Belcher, the former head of the American Bar Association’s probate division, told The Times that if Mrs Fossett decided to have her husband declared dead, she could go to court and argue for an expedited ruling. The couple did not have any children.
But business partners or agents might have a financial interest in having him still legally alive, as income-generating agreements often terminate on death. He said court battles between parties who want a missing person declared dead and those who do not are common.
He cited a case he was recently involved in where a lawyer disappeared in his light aircraft over the sea. Neither his body nor the wreckage was ever found. A creditor wanted him declared dead as soon as possible. His family did not – his estate was declining in value because of a drop in the financial markets and they calculated that if they held off for several years, it would increase in value again. The parties spent 18 months in court. The man was eventually declared dead.
The massive search for Fossett also turned up six aircraft crash sites in the mountainous expanse of western Nevada and eastern California, with some dating back to the early 1960s.
For more than a week after the crash sites were reported, one family hoped that a 43-year mystery had been solved. Charles “Chazzie” Ogle’s single-engine plane disappeared over the Nevada desert in August 1964, and his son - who was 4 at the time – thought that the Fossett search might finally offer some answers. William Ogle, 47, said that the tragedy had “hung over me my whole life”, but last week his hopes were dashed.
Searchers said four of the wrecks were already on file with federal officials and dated from the past 30 years – although the planes’ pilots have yet to be identified.
A fifth “wreck” turned out to not be a crash site but merely debris. The sixth was dated to 1961 – three years before Mr Ogle, a multimillionaire land investor, disappeared. “We’re very sorry, but we believe now that Mr Ogle’s plane was not among the ones we’ve found,” said Major Ed Locke of the National Guard.
Conspiracy theories
Internet explanations for Fossett’s disappearance include:
—He was shot down by the US Air Force for straying too close to “Area 51” in Nevada where the Pentagon tests new aircraft
—He is not missing at all, but being used by the US Air Force as a cover story. While pretending to look for him, the military has actually been searching for a missing nuclear weapon
—He has been abducted to test-fly a UFO
Zizz zizzt
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Hot Air Bag Descends on Wires
QUARRYVILLE -- A hot air balloon came down off course Sunday in East Drumore Township. Quarryville Fire Company was dispatched for a Public Service as the hot air balloon came down over wires on Solanco Road. The basket (seen at right) landed in the field opposite the Solanco High School.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Power line incident
WESTPORT, Mass. -- A hot air balloon came down unexpectedly in Westport Friday, crashing on a power line and causing a power outage in more than 100 homes.
NSTAR spokesman Mike Durand says it was not clear what caused the early morning accident that also broke a utility pole on Sodom Road.
Police said six passengers and one pilot were aboard the hot air balloon but did not know the ballon's origin or their destination. No one was seriously injured.
No other details are known at this time, refresh your page for updates from NBC 10.
NSTAR spokesman Mike Durand says it was not clear what caused the early morning accident that also broke a utility pole on Sodom Road.
Police said six passengers and one pilot were aboard the hot air balloon but did not know the ballon's origin or their destination. No one was seriously injured.
No other details are known at this time, refresh your page for updates from NBC 10.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Hooray its the joke again.
A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The woman below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41
degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be in Information Technology," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, everything you told me is technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information and the
fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip."
The woman below responded, "You must be in Management."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."
The woman below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41
degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."
"You must be in Information Technology," said the balloonist.
"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, everything you told me is technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information and the
fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip."
The woman below responded, "You must be in Management."
"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"
"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."
TSB Canada
TSB has safety suggestions after last month's hot air balloon crash
Wednesday, September 19 - 06:46:56 PM
Andrea Macpherson/Bruce Claggett
SURREY (NEWS1130) - Fantasy Balloon Charters says it will work with investigators to make sure a disaster never happens again. It is the company involved in this summer's hot air balloon crash in Surrey, and it's pleased with the preliminary ideas being floated by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board.
John Kageorge is speaking for the company and said it plans to impliment every suggestion put forward by the TSB.
"A draft recommendation suggests there be an emergency shut off for propane, that is something that would involve the manufacturers of the equiptment, and certainly is something that seems quite needed."
The suggestions involved the handling of the propane gas system and the tether that burned when the balloon went up in flames. Kageorge said the business has suspended all flights until the end of the season, and it is focused on the people impacted by the crash. Two women died and 11 other's were hurt in the accident.
Wednesday, September 19 - 06:46:56 PM
Andrea Macpherson/Bruce Claggett
SURREY (NEWS1130) - Fantasy Balloon Charters says it will work with investigators to make sure a disaster never happens again. It is the company involved in this summer's hot air balloon crash in Surrey, and it's pleased with the preliminary ideas being floated by the Canadian Transportation Safety Board.
John Kageorge is speaking for the company and said it plans to impliment every suggestion put forward by the TSB.
"A draft recommendation suggests there be an emergency shut off for propane, that is something that would involve the manufacturers of the equiptment, and certainly is something that seems quite needed."
The suggestions involved the handling of the propane gas system and the tether that burned when the balloon went up in flames. Kageorge said the business has suspended all flights until the end of the season, and it is focused on the people impacted by the crash. Two women died and 11 other's were hurt in the accident.
Pilot of hot-air balloon pilot who crashed helped TSB develop proposed new rules
Pilot of hot-air balloon pilot who crashed helped TSB develop proposed new rules
12 minutes ago
VANCOUVER - The pilot of a hot-air balloon that plunged to the ground in a fiery crash, killing two people last month, conducted his own experiments to help the Transportation Safety Board come up with recommendations to make ballooning safer.
John Kageorge, a spokesman for the pilot, said the Transportation Safety Board has concluded a propane fuel leak had a role in the fire that burned through the balloon's tether, setting off a series of horrific events that ended with some passengers having to jump several storeys to get out of the balloon.
The board said Wednesday investigators have come up with four recommendations.
Kageorge said Pennock has worked very closely with the board, offering his eyewitness account of the accident as well as lending his expertise as an experienced balloon pilot.
"He had a critical role in the development of these recommendations," Kageorge said.
"So much so that after each meeting the pilot had with the Transportation Safety Board, he'd spend his evenings doing considerable experiments so that he could report back theories, concepts the next day."
Board spokesman Tony Pleasants said one of the board's recommendations has to do with the fact that there's no emergency fuel shut-off systems in hot-air balloons the way there is with other aircraft.
"(Other aircraft) normally have a master emergency fuel shut-off system and there's no such thing on balloons," said Pleasants.
Two other recommendations involve the general handling of the liquid propane gas system and the tether that burned through.
Pleasants said he doesn't want to comment on the fourth.
"The fourth one - I think I really can't say too much about it because if I said anything it could be seen as kind of finding fault and we don't do that."
The recommendations were submitted to the board's Gatineau, Que., office last week and will likely be referred back to Pleasants before they are finalized.
When complete, the recommendations will go to Transport Canada, which will then order safety changes to the balloon company or even the industry as a whole.
"They (Transport Canada) could focus on the possibility of changing the regulatory structure," Pleasants said.
He said his job is to propose something while Transport Canada is charged with taking action.
The flame-engulfed hot air balloon crashed into a B.C. trailer park on Aug. 24, injuring the pilot and 10 others and killing a woman and her grown daughter.
Shannon Knackstedt and her daughter Jemma had been celebrating Shannon's 50th birthday with the hot-air balloon ride with Fantasy Balloon Charters.
Kageorge said one or two of the injured remain in hospital.
"Some people's injuries will affect them for their entire life and for that, Steve and the company are very sorry," he said.
"Some people have been able to rejoin their regular routine in their lives, although they've certainly been impacted by the trauma. Some people escaped with less injury."
Kageorge said Pennock remains emotionally devastated.
"His heart is full of sorrow for how people have been impacted by this."
No lawsuits have yet been served on the company.
Fantasy Balloon Charters voluntarily stopped operations after the accident. The hot-air ballooning season closes at the end of September, but Kageorge said the company will resume flights in May.
The company will implement all of the board's recommendations, he added.
The accident was among three involving balloons this summer.
A gust of wind dragged a balloon into a set of power lines in Calgary earlier this month but the pilot and his eight passengers weren't injured.
In August a hot air balloon fire sent three people to hospital near Winnipeg.
The balloon landed in a field, flipping the basket before a rope caught fire and the balloon burst into flames.
12 minutes ago
VANCOUVER - The pilot of a hot-air balloon that plunged to the ground in a fiery crash, killing two people last month, conducted his own experiments to help the Transportation Safety Board come up with recommendations to make ballooning safer.
John Kageorge, a spokesman for the pilot, said the Transportation Safety Board has concluded a propane fuel leak had a role in the fire that burned through the balloon's tether, setting off a series of horrific events that ended with some passengers having to jump several storeys to get out of the balloon.
The board said Wednesday investigators have come up with four recommendations.
Kageorge said Pennock has worked very closely with the board, offering his eyewitness account of the accident as well as lending his expertise as an experienced balloon pilot.
"He had a critical role in the development of these recommendations," Kageorge said.
"So much so that after each meeting the pilot had with the Transportation Safety Board, he'd spend his evenings doing considerable experiments so that he could report back theories, concepts the next day."
Board spokesman Tony Pleasants said one of the board's recommendations has to do with the fact that there's no emergency fuel shut-off systems in hot-air balloons the way there is with other aircraft.
"(Other aircraft) normally have a master emergency fuel shut-off system and there's no such thing on balloons," said Pleasants.
Two other recommendations involve the general handling of the liquid propane gas system and the tether that burned through.
Pleasants said he doesn't want to comment on the fourth.
"The fourth one - I think I really can't say too much about it because if I said anything it could be seen as kind of finding fault and we don't do that."
The recommendations were submitted to the board's Gatineau, Que., office last week and will likely be referred back to Pleasants before they are finalized.
When complete, the recommendations will go to Transport Canada, which will then order safety changes to the balloon company or even the industry as a whole.
"They (Transport Canada) could focus on the possibility of changing the regulatory structure," Pleasants said.
He said his job is to propose something while Transport Canada is charged with taking action.
The flame-engulfed hot air balloon crashed into a B.C. trailer park on Aug. 24, injuring the pilot and 10 others and killing a woman and her grown daughter.
Shannon Knackstedt and her daughter Jemma had been celebrating Shannon's 50th birthday with the hot-air balloon ride with Fantasy Balloon Charters.
Kageorge said one or two of the injured remain in hospital.
"Some people's injuries will affect them for their entire life and for that, Steve and the company are very sorry," he said.
"Some people have been able to rejoin their regular routine in their lives, although they've certainly been impacted by the trauma. Some people escaped with less injury."
Kageorge said Pennock remains emotionally devastated.
"His heart is full of sorrow for how people have been impacted by this."
No lawsuits have yet been served on the company.
Fantasy Balloon Charters voluntarily stopped operations after the accident. The hot-air ballooning season closes at the end of September, but Kageorge said the company will resume flights in May.
The company will implement all of the board's recommendations, he added.
The accident was among three involving balloons this summer.
A gust of wind dragged a balloon into a set of power lines in Calgary earlier this month but the pilot and his eight passengers weren't injured.
In August a hot air balloon fire sent three people to hospital near Winnipeg.
The balloon landed in a field, flipping the basket before a rope caught fire and the balloon burst into flames.
Transportation Safety Board makes recommendations after hot air balloon crash
Aftermath of crash at Hazelmere CampgroundNews1130 Photo
Wednesday, September 19 - 01:06:46 PM Dean Recksiedler
SURREY (NEWS1130) - An investigator with the Transportation Safety Board has made four recommendations after last month's hot air balloon crash in South Surrey that killed two people. The recommendations deal with the handling of the liquid propane gas system and the fact there's no master "kill-switch" to shut off the fuel in an emergency.
The Fantasy Charter's balloon crashed into the Hazelmere trailer park August 24th, injuring several people and killing a woman and her daughter. The TSB is trying to figure out how a fire broke out in the balloon's gondola before it plummeted into the trailer park and incinerated three recreational vehicles.
-----------------------Perhaps manifolds should be banned and quick shut off mandatory??? Lets see if the Canadian and US press pick up on that.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Fallen pilot recovering
A Texas man who fell during a weekend hot air balloon mishap in Bossier City was recovering Monday after surgery as the Federal Aviation Administration began investigating.
Rick Ashby, 54, of Longview, Texas, was listed in good condition, according to an LSU Hospital spokesman.
The 18-year pilot broke his ankles and wrists after falling between 20 and 50 feet, his family said Monday.
Ashby and an unidentified female passenger fell out of the ULTRAMAGIC SA M-56C as it crashed Sunday morning near Bass Pro Shops in Bossier City during the Centennial Hot Air Balloon Rally, an event celebrating the city's 100th birthday. The two were playing a game in which basket occupants try to drop beanbags onto targets on the ground.
After the crash, the aircraft started drifting, and Ashby grabbed a rope attached to the basket. Witnesses, including a Bossier City police officer, have given different accounts on how far he fell after the balloon pulled him into the air. It eventually landed without a pilot across Red River after hitting a light pole on Clyde Fant Parkway.
The woman had a few bruises but did not need medical attention.
The FAA is examining Ashby's credentials and background, the balloon and environmental factors, said Roland Herwig, a spokesman for the agency.
Ashby is listed with the FAA as the owner of the airship, manufactured in 2004.
Investigators also will look into the background of Ashby's passenger.
An investigator spoke Monday with the Bossier City officer who was a witness, city spokesman Mark Natale said. The Police and Fire departments are otherwise not involved.
Sunday's accident is the second locally in less than a week in which the FAA is investigating.
That agency with the National Transportation Safety Board is trying to determine what caused the helicopter crash that killed Joseph Benjamin Grammer, 36, and Jeffery Daniel Legro, 24, on Wednesday between Hosston and Vivian.
The Fairchild-Hiller 1100 went down in the woods south of Black Lake Bayou off state Highway 2. The newly purchased, refurbished chopper was en route from Century, Fla., to Grammer's flight training school near Las Vegas.
A preliminary report is expected this week, but a final determination could take six months to a year.
Rick Ashby, 54, of Longview, Texas, was listed in good condition, according to an LSU Hospital spokesman.
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Ashby and an unidentified female passenger fell out of the ULTRAMAGIC SA M-56C as it crashed Sunday morning near Bass Pro Shops in Bossier City during the Centennial Hot Air Balloon Rally, an event celebrating the city's 100th birthday. The two were playing a game in which basket occupants try to drop beanbags onto targets on the ground.
After the crash, the aircraft started drifting, and Ashby grabbed a rope attached to the basket. Witnesses, including a Bossier City police officer, have given different accounts on how far he fell after the balloon pulled him into the air. It eventually landed without a pilot across Red River after hitting a light pole on Clyde Fant Parkway.
The woman had a few bruises but did not need medical attention.
The FAA is examining Ashby's credentials and background, the balloon and environmental factors, said Roland Herwig, a spokesman for the agency.
Ashby is listed with the FAA as the owner of the airship, manufactured in 2004.
Investigators also will look into the background of Ashby's passenger.
An investigator spoke Monday with the Bossier City officer who was a witness, city spokesman Mark Natale said. The Police and Fire departments are otherwise not involved.
Sunday's accident is the second locally in less than a week in which the FAA is investigating.
That agency with the National Transportation Safety Board is trying to determine what caused the helicopter crash that killed Joseph Benjamin Grammer, 36, and Jeffery Daniel Legro, 24, on Wednesday between Hosston and Vivian.
The Fairchild-Hiller 1100 went down in the woods south of Black Lake Bayou off state Highway 2. The newly purchased, refurbished chopper was en route from Century, Fla., to Grammer's flight training school near Las Vegas.
A preliminary report is expected this week, but a final determination could take six months to a year.
Remax balloon in Whitesands Missile Range airspace
Balloon drifts into WSMR
Article Launched: 09/19/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT
Click photo to enlarge 
The ReMax balloon floats over White Sands Sunday, heading for... (Karl Anderson/Daily News)
Officials are still investigating the circumstances in which one of the balloons participating in the 16th Annual White Sands Balloon Invitational at White Sands National Monument flew east into the restricted air space of White Sands Missile Range.
Not only did the red, white and blue ReMax balloon fly into restricted air space, but it actually landed three and a half miles beyond gate 36.
The violation created a frenzy of involvement by an appointed balloon rescue team, the Border Patrol, range runners from WSMR and park rangers from WSNM.
"We received the call to respond at 10:30 a.m.," said Bill Butler, another balloon pilot who participated with the event Sunday. "We arrived at Gate 36, past the radar site. When we reached the balloon, the pilot and three passengers were still there with the balloon."
Butler said that all officials were very helpful and cooperative.
Shortly after the arrival of the rescue team, Balloon Meister Dave Chelgren arrived on the scene accompanied by two more Border Patrol agents, one of whom was the husband of one of the passengers, Butler added.
Butler explained from his perspective as a balloon pilot why he thought the violation may have occurred.
"I'm going to be professional about this and just answer that by saying the pilot of that balloon did not attend the safety briefing last Friday night," he said
The ReMax balloon is owned by Troy Bradley, of Albuquerque, who did not attend the event last weekend.
Butler said with the wind and weather being what it was last Sunday, he would have chosen an alternative launch spot.
"I personally chose to fly in town (Alamogordo) on Sunday because of the conditions at White Sands National Monument that would not have allowed us to safely go very far," he said.
Butler said he is very concerned about this incident, and feels many other pilots share the same sentiment.
"We need to keep a very positive relationship with the military and the Parks Service in this area so that we can continue to be allowed to have the White Sands Balloon Invitational at the monument," he said. "This certainly didn't do anything to enhance that relationship."
A call made to WSMR Tuesday confirmed the balloon was taken out of the area Monday.
"It did cross WSMR restricted air space," said Monte Marlin, director of public affairs for the missile range. "But where it came down was about five and a half miles west of Holloman Air Force Base in a remote eastern area of the monument."
Marlin said while the balloon did not actually land on WSMR property, it did make its landing in an area not conducive to ground traffic.
"It's a very sensitive area that can easily be harmed by ground vehicles," Marlin said. "It is in a very sensitive part of the monument."
Marlin said once all respective agencies had given clearance, it only took 40 minutes for WSMR air support to deploy and subsequently return the balloon to the helipad at the national monument.
"There have been very few incidents like this since the hot air balloons began to come for this event," Marlin said. "We are a part of this process, and we have always supported and assisted with this event each year."
Marlin was asked if repeated incidents of this nature could jeopardize the relationship the two military installations have with the balloon event.
"It's a bit premature to answer that," Marlin said. "All I can tell you at this point is that we have been and continue to support this event, but that this will be looked at very carefully."
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
UK Girl Guides create tether record
Well done to all involved, good job.
The toast of Namche: UK Girlguiding team breaks unofficial Tether hot air balloon record?
11:07 am EST Sep 18, 2007
(MountEverest.net) Last Sunday (Sept 9) the Girlguiding UK team succeeded at 0600 local to inflate and display Tether it's new hot air balloon above Syangboche.
"We had hoped to do so at Dingboche and EBC just get some pictures and to see if it was possible with a small balloon," the team wrote to ExWeb last week. "A combination of the appauling weather and the bridge down at Phunki Tenga aborted that, but our girls have done us proud all the same."
Just for fun and science
It was the association's first official basecamp trek and the balloon went along just for for fun and science, "no illusions of flying over the top or anything!"
The voluntary team used a lightweight Ultramagic 56,000cft envelope and duochair hopper bottom end (rather than a basket). Himalaya Expeditions porters carried all the kit up and back, the team reports.
"Certainly a first for the area"
"We think 3858m is an unofficial record for a full display tether of a hot air balloon and it's certainly a first for the area," Mark Warne from the team wrote.
"The girls have won a lot of respect from my fellow pilots worldwide for achieving something technically difficult in challenging conditions. I know very few hardened balloonists who might have tried it and even less who would have put up with the Khumbu weather over the past two weeks."
"The girls were certainly the toast of a very quiet Namche this weekend and all hope to be back to try Island Peak next year."
The toast of Namche: UK Girlguiding team breaks unofficial Tether hot air balloon record?
It was the association's first official basecamp trek and the balloon went along just for for fun and science, "no illusions of flying over the top or anything!" (Click to enlarge) ) The voluntary team used a lightweight Ultramagic 56,000cft envelope and duochair hopper bottom end (rather than a basket). Click to enlarge.) "We think 3858 m is an unofficial record for a full display tether of a hot air balloon and it's certainly a first for the area," Mark Warne from the team reported to ExplorersWeb. All images courtesy of the expedition.
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(MountEverest.net) Last Sunday (Sept 9) the Girlguiding UK team succeeded at 0600 local to inflate and display Tether it's new hot air balloon above Syangboche.
"We had hoped to do so at Dingboche and EBC just get some pictures and to see if it was possible with a small balloon," the team wrote to ExWeb last week. "A combination of the appauling weather and the bridge down at Phunki Tenga aborted that, but our girls have done us proud all the same."
Just for fun and science
It was the association's first official basecamp trek and the balloon went along just for for fun and science, "no illusions of flying over the top or anything!"
The voluntary team used a lightweight Ultramagic 56,000cft envelope and duochair hopper bottom end (rather than a basket). Himalaya Expeditions porters carried all the kit up and back, the team reports.
"Certainly a first for the area"
"We think 3858m is an unofficial record for a full display tether of a hot air balloon and it's certainly a first for the area," Mark Warne from the team wrote.
"The girls have won a lot of respect from my fellow pilots worldwide for achieving something technically difficult in challenging conditions. I know very few hardened balloonists who might have tried it and even less who would have put up with the Khumbu weather over the past two weeks."
"The girls were certainly the toast of a very quiet Namche this weekend and all hope to be back to try Island Peak next year."
Steve Fossett, new images at Amazon Mechanical Turk
If you have already taken part in Amazon Mechanical Turk search for Steve you may be interested to know that newer high definition images have been added.
More info at Steves official site http://www.stevefossett.com/
G
More info at Steves official site http://www.stevefossett.com/
G
Monday, September 17, 2007
Just hanging around
Lets hope this dude is not allowed to particpate in any other events until he has received some further training.
A Longview, Texas, man was injured Sunday morning when the hot air balloon he was piloting fell to the ground near Bass Pro Shops in Bossier City, causing him and a female passenger to fall out of the balloon.
Rick Ashby, 54, and an unidentified woman were participating in a game of throwing bean bags out of the balloon to hit targets on the ground when the balloon crashed, said Bossier City spokesman Mark Natale.
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The balloon did seem to be descending pretty fast, Eddington said, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary when the balloon hit the ground.
As the balloon started to ascend back into the sky, Ashby grabbed a rope tied to the balloon in an attempt to prevent it from flying away.
"People around were telling him to 'Let it go, let it go,' because it just kept going higher and higher," Eddington said.
The balloon continued to rise and Ashby finally let go and fell to the ground.
Eddington, who took photos of the accident, said, "He fell 20—30 feet and the balloon crashed into a clump of trees."
A nearby Bossier City officer also witnessed the incident and estimated Ashby's fall to be between 30 and 50 feet, Natale said.
Ashby was transported to LSU Hospital with what appeared to be "broken lower extremities," Natale said, but nothing life-threatening.
The woman had a few bruises, he said, but didn't require any emergency medical attention.
The pilotless balloon flew over the river into Shreveport, where it finally landed on a light pole on Clyde Fant Parkway, Natale said.
No other injuries were reported.
The event was part of the weekend's larger Centennial Hot Air Balloon Rally, one of the many events celebrating Bossier City's 100th birthday this year, Natale said.
Helium balloon to move
Monday September 17, 2007
Hot-air balloon needs new home
THE search is on for a new home for the DHL balloon – and it has just three months to find one.
The lease on the Tan Quee Lan Street site, where it has been based for the past 16 months, will expire on Dec 31.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority said it cannot grant an extension as there are “other plans for the site”, which it is unable to disclose now.
James Heng, chief executive of Singapore Ducktours which owns the balloon, has suggested two alternatives to the authorities: a site in Beach Road opposite Park View Hotel or at Merchant Loop opposite Novotel Clarke Quay Hotel. He has not heard from them.
The Singapore Land Authority will help to find another site, but will open it for public tender.
If no green patch is found, the balloon might have to be deflated and packed away.
“I’m very sad, it’s my baby,” said Heng, who greets his balloon every day from his office window at Suntec Tower Two.
Or it might relocate to Kuala Lumpur or Johor Baru.
About S$2.5mil (RM5.75mil) has been pumped into the attraction, not including land rent which was over S$1mil (RM2.3mil) for two years. Calling it a day would cost the company S$1.2mil (RM2.76mil).
This includes S$800,000 (RM1.84mil) spent priming the ground for the balloon, plus S$60,000 (RM138,000) worth of helium.
The balloon operates daily, charging S$23 (RM52.90) for adults and S$13 (RM29.90) for children per ride. It rises to a height of 150m, about 40 storeys, and takes up to 29 passengers per trip. It has ferried 150,000 visitors to date.
Ticket sales – S$3.45mil (RM7.93mil) in the past 16 months – have been on track.
Heng is eyeing the Gardens by the Bay project in the Marina Bay area as another alternative and is in talks with the National Parks Board.
For now, Ducktours will offer free balloon rides to charities and deserving Singaporeans who write in till year-end. He said: “It’s our way of giving back to society.” – The Straits Times / Asia News Network
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Gordon Bennett cancelled
Lifted directly from Aunty Monkey and a post by Kiff
http://hotairballoon.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=699743%3ABlogPost%3A16700
http://hotairballoon.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=699743%3ABlogPost%3A16700
I could be overdoing this claim but hopefully it has grabbed your attention and a eye catching banner is very important in journalism.
The scoop is that having driven accross France to watch the launch of the 21 Gordon Bennett gas balloon race - I have just returned from the field leaving behind a shocked gaggle of gas balloonist who were coming to terms with the cancelation of the event due to lack of ATC clearance.
The shame of it all was that the balloons where inflated, packed and ready to go with the weather perfect and a ideal flight trajectory taking them all towards Poland.
I won't speculate as to the issues but it was highly discernible the disappointment amongst the organisers, pilots and crews who had worked so hard. My heart really goes out to them.
I am sure there will be some hard drinking in Brussels tonight
On a personal note - I must say I was thrilled to watch the set up and inflation of these majestic aircraft - it was also wonderful to meet up with Petra again after many years. She gave me a crew pass so I could wander the launch field and take some photo's. Hope you like them I'm off the Chateau d'Oex to try to catch a gas balloon flight over the Alps - Hopefully I may have better luck A Bientot - Kiff
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Help find Steve Fossett 2
Seems like it is for real and a very good idea, each user is presented with one image to review. All using something called amazon mechanical turk, no doubt something a stack of balloonists are about to learn about.
More upto date images for google earth http://s3.amazonaws.com/fossett/geoeye-color.kml
Happy hunting, would be amazing if this overtook the work of several aircraft and high tech equipment.
Spread the word amongst your ballooning friends.
G
More upto date images for google earth http://s3.amazonaws.com/fossett/geoeye-color.kml
Happy hunting, would be amazing if this overtook the work of several aircraft and high tech equipment.
Spread the word amongst your ballooning friends.
G
Help find Steve Fosset
I guess this is worth a try if the images truely are recent. Click through the links to start looking!!
An anonymous reader invites us to join in the hunt for the missing Steve Fossett using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. DigitalGlobe, one of Google's imaging partners, has acquired new high-resolution satellite imagery of the area where Fossett disappeared on Monday. The public can now go through this imagery and quickly flag any images that might contain Fossett's plane. Flagged images will receive further review by search and rescue experts.
An anonymous reader invites us to join in the hunt for the missing Steve Fossett using Amazon's Mechanical Turk. DigitalGlobe, one of Google's imaging partners, has acquired new high-resolution satellite imagery of the area where Fossett disappeared on Monday. The public can now go through this imagery and quickly flag any images that might contain Fossett's plane. Flagged images will receive further review by search and rescue experts.
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