I've been absolutely fascinated by them since.
Yeah, they ARE fascinating.
If I had time to fly two aircraft types, or if I ever quit hang gliding, I'd definitely take up ballooning.
- Don't even THINK about quitting hang gliding. If you do I WILL have you hunted down and killed - slowly - within a week. I've put WAY too much time into you for that to be an option.
- I'll let you live if you get forced out of hang gliding for being too arrogant and condescending as long as you keep attacking from the outside.
- But then go into sailplaning 'cause I'm gonna get hot air ballooning outlawed 'cause of what it's doing to the icecaps.
Balloon drops sound pretty cool but they basically seem like a balloon ride followed by a hang glider sledder.
- No. It's a balloon ride followed by the Stall From Hell followed by a hang glider sledder.
- Your professed Ultimate Goal In Life is a 3200 foot hang glider sledder from Glacier Point. You can do multiples of that from a balloon a lot closer to home. Granted, the view will be pretty dull - but repeatedly buzzing a descending balloon is pretty cool.
The thing that freaks me out about the idea is the fact that a premature release at the wrong time will kill you.
Versus a tow were a premature release - or a loop of 130 pound Greenspot - just CAN kill you.
Given that, I don't see any problem with someone in the balloon having to use a knife to effect a release.
YECH.
It's not like the glider pilot has to worry about getting off in an instant due to a low level lockout.
Extremely.
We haven't discussed it with any balloonists either.
Talk to some at the next Festival.
The big question I have is legality.
I tried to do it legally. Ended up dealing with some rude little prick with way too much job security at the FAA and a stupid incompetent Designated Engineering Representative who was only interested in ripping me off. Ended up saying fuck it and them and just doing it - the way everybody else always has.
Allen Sparks is probably the only person to get his equipment legal - with a Supplementary Type Certificate ('cause he wasn't working with total dicks) - but his stuff sucks compared to mine.
It sounds like you've done at least one before...
Yeah. Also at most one. But the wind was pretty marginal so maybe I should get extra credit.
...and you've obviously put a lot of effort into designing equipment for it.
Yeah. Always seem to put a billion times the time and effort designing and constructing stuff that I do actually using it.
I've hung out with and helped launch and recover a lot of balloons and talked with John and Rob Kells about the issues.
It's a beautiful system - if I do say so myself. It's way overbuilt 'cause that was back in the day when if I heard a skygod like John Heiney advise a factor of ten I'd blindly do a factor of ten. Could've done it a lot easier and cheaper using a factor of three and hollow braid for the Bridle and Lift Line but what the hell.
It's designed to rig to ANY balloon - regardless of the suspension configuration - and any kingposted glider (there's no good way to do a topless) within a couple of minutes.
I have emergency releases at both ends of the bridle on the gondola and those and the one on the glider have bulletproof safeties such that there's no freakin' way they can be accidentally triggered.
Read the manual and John's article, look at the photos, practice a few knots, think about the procedures. It's an interesting experience and having a drop in your logbook gives you a little cachet that most of these bozos don't have. And I'll be more than happy to walk you through things so's you can get up and down glitch free. Hell, we have cell phones nowadays so it could be almost as good as having on site coaching.
Meaning you'll kill me within a week of quitting, or I'll be killed slowly over the course of a week?