Another 5 tasks down

This morning’s flight was spectacular. It was the flight that everyone had been waiting for all week. Five tasks were declared:

Task 3 – Fly In
Task 4 – Calculated Rate of Approach Task (CRAT)
Task 5 – Hesitation Waltz
Task 6 – Hesitation Waltz
Task 7 – Land Run

For the fly in, we ended driving around on our own in the hills surrounding the main valley trying to find the best position to launch. We ended up driving down a tiny bush track to the bottom of the hill, to the place we thought would be ideal. When we arrived at the spot we found about 30 other balloons queuing up to launch from this small track. Since we had approached this tiny spot from the opposite direction, we were able to squeeze in the top of the paddock and get off the ground quickly.



The first 2 tasks relied on using the drainage down the valley to get to the goals. The CRAT consisted of a circle on the CLP that had 4 segments that opened and closed every 15 minutes. Sean managed to get to results around 23 metres for the first 2 tasks.

There was 2 ways to approach the tasks with the only right hand turns being in the bottom 300 feet (which was very slow) or at 6000 feet. So as you can imagine, there was a lot of climbing and descending going on. Sean opted to sit in the bottom winds which certainly paid off, getting about a 6 metre result on the first HWZ and then about 1 metre on the second.

It was then a case of flying down to a large power line that was the start of the Land Run, which had two 20 minute legs. It is hard to tell how he went on this task in relation to the other teams. We will need to wait until the results come out for that one.

Overall we were pretty happy with the morning. The two HWZ tasks were definitely the highlight.

It is looking like a stunner this afternoon, so hopefully we will get another couple of tasks.

Last night’s tasks, which were a Hare and Hounds and a Hesitation Waltz were canceled due to the very strong winds that did not die down in time. So we sat in the party tent, drank beer and eat a bit more schnitzel.