Minnesota, South Dakota, Gas balloons!

[Guest tx2sturgis]

http://balloonfiesta.com/GasTracking/2013/

 

 

Three of the Gas Balloons are still flying...yall look up, especially at sunset, if they are in your area!

 

Edited October 9, 2013 by tx2sturgis

[bj66]

according to the map, balloon 4 would have been closest. About 80-100 miles south east of me.......

[Guest tx2sturgis]

according to the map, balloon 4 would have been closest. About 80-100 miles south east of me.......

 

 

Cool...if the lighting is right, in the early morning or late in the day with the sunlight hitting them from the side, they are easily seen from 50-75 miles if they are high enough. They appear as a bright glowing dot that seems more or less stationary.

 

Full daylight or dark of night they are very hard or impossible to see.

 

They never got close to me this year, but in years past they have flown right over this area.

 

Well...there is always next year!

 

 

 

[Guest tx2sturgis]

All five Gas Balloons have landed...the winner made it all the way from Albuquerque to Ontario, north of Lake Superior.

 

http://balloonfiesta.com/GasTracking/2013/ac_status.html

 

 

http://balloonfiesta.com/GasTracking/2013/mobile.html

 

 

[Snaggletooth]

All five Gas Balloons have landed...the winner made it all the way from Albuquerque to Ontario, north of Lake Superior.

 

 

 

 

Yeah. You got me watching that yesterday. Kinda crazy there over the evening and into the night.

 

I had an opportunity to take a flight in one several years ago. Only about 50 miles. Hardly get the sensation of speed in one.

 

They don't post the altitude on the web to keep the info private during the flights but I'll have to follow up on that.

 

Don't think I'd ever consider spending 60 hours in one and over water at night .... don't think so.

 

But an interesting event for sure.

 

 

 

From my Droid wherever I may happen to be at any given moment.

[Flyinfool]

That certainly took a set to fly all of the way over that big puddle up there.

Especially since they already had it won before they started over the lake.

[Guest tx2sturgis]

.

 

They don't post the altitude on the web to keep the info private during the flights but I'll have to follow up on that.

 

 

That info is considered secret, as each pilot figures out an altitude and if it its a good choice, in other words, that altitude has the desired winds, they dont want to reveal that altitude to the competitors.

 

Likewise, a bad choice in altitude that stalls a balloon is not going to be revealed in case another balloon would try to avoid a known 'dead air' region.

 

Balloon pilots can only control one thing: Altitude...mother nature does the rest.