Thanks, Brian! Well, yes, there were moments of anxiety as we dropped into a space with 4kV power lines on 2 sides and 270kV lines about 100 ft downwind. Not to mention the pilot tapping the gauge on the top of the propane tank and murmuring "I'm a =bit= concerned about the fuel situation" (being very well acquainted with British understatement, this probably pricked my ears more than the other passengers').
But, as they say, a good landing is one you can walk away from, and a =great= landing is one that lets you use the aircraft again! Rick http://photo.net/photos/RickW ----- Original Message ----- From: Brian Walters <[email protected]> To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List <[email protected]> Cc: Sent: Sunday, June 23, 2013 6:51 PM Subject: Re: GESO (22) - Balloon adventure Quoting Rick Womer <[email protected]>: > Yesterday we took our long-anticipated hot air balloon ride outside > Philly. We launched at ~0630, on a cool and clear morning with > some mist and high clouds. 1:20 and about 9 miles later the > pilot dropped us quickly but gently into a remarkably small suburban > yard, threading between trees and power lines. Impressive. > > Six passengers and the pilot were stuffed into a space about 5 x 6 > ft--cozy. I had just enough room to turn 90 degrees and change > lenses. > > Photographically the trip was challenging: since quarters were > so tight and we stayed fairly close to the ground (it was calm above > ~1000 ft, as the other balloon learned the hard way), I mostly used > my 10-17 fisheye. The wide field of view was nice in the > cramped quarters, but the distortion was sometimes troublesome. > This especially affected shots of the balloon above us--it is > a beautiful sight, having this gigantic colorful sunlit > gasbag above one, but the distortion makes it look about the size of > a beach ball. > > Enough blather! The gallery is here: > > http://photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=1055134 > > Comments much appreciated! > > Great gallery- it looks pretty cosy in that basket! The power lines would have given me the heebie-jeebies. -- Cheers Brian ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Brian Walters Western Sydney Australia http://lyons-ryan.org/southernlight/ -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
