Commercial Lesson

Weather systems move through pretty quickly this time of year. In the summer and fall, you might have a few days or a week with good, flyable weather. In the winter and spring, there might be a day or two here or there that are good, and there are lots of days in between the good ones. Today, was one of those days.

Light winds at the surface were supposed to remain light, despite high winds at low elevations. David and I decided to drive out past Pinnacle Mountain to launch, with the intention of flying toward Two Rivers Park.

We had a nice inflation in cool (28 degrees) temperatures. Then we lifted off slowly, with the intention of staying below the fast winds. Wind speeds low were pretty slow, but even to 1200 feet MSL, the winds never exceeded 10 kts. We did get a nice right turn up high, which gave us lots of opportunities to steer ourselves.

We flew for over an hour, and didn't make it to Two Rivers Park. If we wanted to fly another 30 minutes, we probably could have gotten there, but Alex, our chase driver, had to get to work, so we found a nice big hay field with no gates. Can't beat that!

It was a fun flight, and a good opportunity to get more comfortable with the area and with David's balloon. David always has good insight that is helping me become a better pilot, too!

Since it was a working flight, and not in my balloon, I didn't fuss with a GPS log or with a camera, so no maps or pictures to show. Sorry!