Sunday Morning Over Sherwood!

I've been waiting for an opportunity to fly from my own neighborhood, and this morning, I had the chance! The forecast was for light, southwest winds on the surface, and we had them! Winds aloft reports were for some faster winds, and we had those, too! Maybe it was inadvisable to fly with those fast winds, but I took the chance, and it paid off!

As we were laying the balloon out, just a stones throw from my house, Cynthia told me to let Mike fly along. Mike had nominated her, but she said he was REALLY excited to fly with, so she deferred until a later date. We thought we might have a windy inflation, but it wasn't bad at all. I made sure the envelope was plenty hot before I told the crew to release me, and we climbed out of the launch field pretty quickly. As soon as we cleared the trees, we took off FAST!

We flew over our neighborhood, and Mike took a picture of our street (our house is probably on the edge of the frame). Then we flew over the Air Force Base, and Mike took some pictures of that. You can barely make out the C-130s parked near the runway. We saw a nice field, and I made a touch and go landing. I thought about staying there, but there wasn't good access for the chase vehicle, and we had plenty of time and plenty of fuel to continue, so we did!

We flew over a lake and a wildlife management area. On the other side of the WMA was the biggest field I think I've ever landed in. There was a forest IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FIELD. We made an approach and leveled out nice and low over the field. We played around getting up and down in an effort to get to a road into the field. Mike pulled the balloon part of the way and we flew it part of the way. Mike even got a little burner time!

We found a good spot for packing up, our chase crew found their way in to us, and we packed up and drove home.

Flying near home was nice, but there wasn't much variation in direction. Flights where I can steer the balloon are always more fun than the ones where I can't, but I'll take a flight like this morning's to not flying anytime!