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On day 3 of Fiesta I woke to the continuing sound of rain on the roof of the trailer I was spending the week in.. It had rained most of the night. After looking at weather, radar maps and texting a couple of pilots, my roommate and fellow photographer, Alee and I made the decision to go back to bed. 

Out at the field they held pilot briefing. The forecast called winds out of the NW at 20 but decreasing to 10-15. Scattered showers through out the area with increasing rain coming in around 8AM for a couple hours. Then there would be greater instability causing thunder storms and locally heavy rain. So of course the logical call is to put the field on hold till 7AM. Turns out some balloons did do static displays with a light rain and heavier rain about 15 minutes away. Practice for later in the week but you’ll have to wait for those stories.

It was a good day for both of us to get caught up on photo editing and processing as well as sleep.

In the afternoon America’s Challenge met and postponed again.

Since I didn’t take any photos on day 3 let’s move on to day 4.

Fiesta day 4

Day 4 became the actual first day of competition with the Sid Cutter task and multiple targets.

Volunteers were working hard to deal with the half inch of rain that fell over night on the field. There was lots of mud and a light rain still falling during pilot briefing with more rain in the forecast after 2PM but the winds were light-ish. Balloons on hold again.

Some of the dawn patrol balloons stood up while the yellow flag was still flying. As the clouds began to clear the balloon of the day was cleared to fly if she wanted to and some of the dawn patrol balloons took off. Eventually the field was opened for the ride and non-competing balloons to fly and the competitors headed off field to find launch spots. Competition for the day was the Sid Cutter Cup and multiple Fiesta declared targets.

Heading into the target area can be tricky. You need to have a safety vest but they didn’t have enough vests this year so our official photographer vests were supposed to be good enough. When confronted by the the safety officials they said okay but called it in to check. A future encounter is not as friendly.

The competitors were spread out as they came in and there were lots of baggies dropped from altitude. Sid Cutter’s wife Jewel was on site to watch the competition at the boat. As the morning progressed, a light rain started and the winds picked up. Although the announcers were still calling it light and variable. I don’t think the flags on the edge of the field were told this as they were all standing out. 

Nick Donner amazed all of us in the scoring area with a bomb drop that everyone thought would end somewhere underground. He stopped about 8 feet off the deck and stayed there as he threw on all 3 targets.

Competitors were still trying to get to the field when the smoke was ignited and targets closed.

When competition ended I was off to the media tent to continue my personal tradition of ice cream at the end of a busy Fiesta morning.

That afternoon America’s challenge met and postponed again

The play-by-play of day 4 competition can be seen on the Fiesta Live video.

The previous days posts can be found on the links below.