Blog

In the olden days….when Ernie and I flew Fiesta, we always looked for dawn patrol to be in the air while we were driving in. Pilot briefing was later in those days and we had no reason to get to the field early. The first clue that weather might not be good for flying this morning was when dawn patrol wasn’t flying or even inflating. Usually they are inflating while the other pilots are being briefed on the weather which happens after all the other announcements that Fiesta likes to make. The more announcements they make the more likely it is they’re stalling before giving the information all the pilots are standing in the cold waiting for. On day 2 the call was to put up the yellow flag signaling a weather hold in hopes that the drainage winds would calm down.

They did eventually raise the green flag and launched the balloon of the day followed by the commercial rides and the Krispy Kreme glow balloons.

As the morning progressed the clouds broke up but the winds were still a bit sporty. Too sporty for some pilots but many of the racing balloons took advantage of a practice day.

Some of the RC balloons tried inflating. They were supposed to try for a world record for the largest number of RC balloons in the air at once. It wasn’t the best day to try for that but a few did put up for a little while. They would try for the record later in the week.

A few special shapes also stood up, some of them flew while others stuck around as crowd pleasers.

A walk-in balloon was inflated once the field was clear of launching balloons. It was surprisingly difficult to get spectators over to walk in it. I guess people thought it was just another old, stinky balloon inflating, no offense Skittles but you are looking a bit dirty.

There was a very slow layer up high and then some pretty fast ones below that.

The field then became a landing field for people who could navigate back. The landings were still lay-overs.

Fiesta gave the pilots pop-up shade tents in their pilot packs to use for tailgating. At the tailgate I was hanging out at it was mentioned that we still had 7 more days of this. It already felt like it was going to be a long week.

America challenge met again and delayed again. Conveniently Art Lloyd let all the photographers know this so we didn’t have to drive in.

Day 2 Balloon Glow

According to the Fiesta Live announcers it was a really nice evening apart from the high winds and weather building to the west. It was a nice evening for all the kites that were flying on the field. All the flags were standing straight out including the yellow flag.

If you aren’t familiar with the flag system at Fiesta it is made up of three flags: 

• Green flag for the field is open and balloons cleared for launch.
• Yellow flag is everything on hold.
• Red flag is that the field is closed, no launching. I don’t believe they own a red flag. I’ve heard from other people that they have actually seen it but I never have.

Not only was it too windy for the balloons but also for the skydivers who jump before and after the glow. The drones and fireworks could still put on their shows. I still never saw the red flag.