After about a 15 minute drive, we all pulled into a subdivision with a large open field covered in dew. They must have used the field B4 as everyone jumped the curb and found a place to setup. Bud and I discussed the direction to launch. We were exhaling deeply in the cool morning air to see which way our breath would float. Not much wind it seemed. I put up my wind sock but it just hung lifeless. Bud was thinking ahead (Boy Scout award for being prepared!) and brought 2 large sheets of plastic to lay out the wings on.

Bud was setup and ready to launch as the first balloons took off. I was of course still messing with gadgets. Bud throttled up and his wing came straight up. He was running when the wing took a dip to the left. He stepped left to get under it and it straightened up but then lost its load and fell back. The dew soaked his wing, not good. The other balloons had just taken off and it was my turn next. I thought my forward launch through one last time and then ran ahead, throttling up. My Muse came up overhead and I powered up to full throttle, a few more running steps and I was airborne.

Once in the air I attached the helmet cam (no more helmet cams into the prop on take-off) and thumbed the remote record button. It just flashed Red at me and shut off several times. My choices were to land and try and fix it, or unhook the helmet cam and wires, pull the Canon GL2 from the bag where it normally functions as recording deck and record with it hand held. The balloons were moving away and that grass was pretty wet so I pulled the GL2. I got all the wires put in the bag without going into the prop and managed to get the camera out. All the while climbing out and chasing the balloons.

I had communication with one of the balloons and my wife in the chase vehicle. The new David Clark noise canceling mic I recently bought worked great, ('gotta love that ebay) they could hear me with the motor at full power.

I was able to shoot video from above, (hot air, = very bumpy!) below, and around the balloons. I also had a camera in a balloon and in the chase vehicle. We flew together for about an hour. Towards the end of the flight another powered paraglider approached us from the south. At first I thought Bud was able to get in the air after all and caught up to us. As he got closer I could see the wing color was different than Bud's. We were able to fly around together with a couple of the balloons that were still in the air for about 10 minutes. I landed near the Texas Air Adventure guys and gals and the PPG guy flew off. I got a call about 45 minutes later from Randy Howell (gilligan). He told me "I'm the guy that was flying with ya'll just a while ago!" It seems he was out flying and happened to see us. He made his way over and caught up to us before we landed. Very cool indeed. More to Come...