Steering a Baloon

Jaybird180

Jaybird180

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Jaybird180
If baloons are subject to the air current they are in, how do baloon pilots fly to an intended destination? For example, during baloon tours; they go up then bring their passengers back to the same point of origin.
 
Jaybird180 said:
If baloons are subject to the air current they are in, how do baloon pilots fly to an intended destination? For example, during baloon tours; they go up then bring their passengers back to the same point of origin.
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Tether?
 
on the balloon tour in Sedona that Leah and i took we just landed out in a field somewhere, the crew followed us and met us at the landing.
 
I think its pretty rare that a balloon returns to its point of origin. I have seen something close, when the winds are circling in a valley. For the most part 'balloon' and 'intended destination' are not often seen in the same sentence!
 
roncachamp said:
Tether?
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(Jim Kelly voice) Man, you must be straight out of a comic book.:rofl:

Help us out here...you have a wealth of knowledge. Why doth thou hideth thy knowledge under thy bushel basket?
 
As I understand it, they do try to find an altitude where the wind is blowing in the general direction they "intend" do go. But options are limited.
 
Years ago I was part of a balloon chase crew and went on a few flights. I remember that before they took off the pilot generally released a kid's helium balloon to see in general which way the winds were blowing at various levels. Also I remember that the winds were pretty predictable along the Boise River in the morning, which flowed downstream to the west. They never ended up where they started, however.
 
Years ago my wife and I did a balloon ride, early morning.

Took off from a church parking lot and drifted west along the Meramec River.

As the flight was nearing it's time allotment we were drifting west along a ridge north of the river.

I asked the pilot where he intended to land and he pointed behind us and to the left at a park along the banks of the river.

We were drifting west and he pointed southeast against the wind. I thought, "Yeah RIGHT!", but did not say it out loud.

The pilot knew what I was thinking and explained that as the sun came up the cooler air was moving down the ridge to the left and would swirl to the left in that valley by the river.

He vented some air and as the balloon approached the top of the ridge it started moving to the left into the valley and as he continued to descend we started drifting back to the east and ended up landing within 20 yards of where he first indicated.

I was impressed.
 
i rode in a balloon once, very cool experience. the lack of apparent wind makes it a silent ride.

as others have said, they usually have a chase van. we landed in a soccer field (funny because there were a group of hispanics right in the middle of a soccer game, they were very surprised)
 
Jaybird180 said:
Help us out here...you have a wealth of knowledge. Why doth thou hideth thy knowledge under thy bushel basket?
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I have very little knowledge of balloon operations. As I understand it, the only directional control available to a free balloon is to alter altitude in hopes of finding a wind that's blowing in the desired direction. I'm pretty sure a tethered balloon could be winched back to the starting point, however.
 
Re: Steering a Balloon

The big balloon fiesta held in ABQ, at the beginning of October, takes advantage of local conditions called the 'box'. The winds literally change directions 180 degrees at different altitudes. This allows (most) balloons to return to (near) the point of departure.

To expand on the comment by 'Letsgoflying' -'steering a balloon' is pretty much an oxymoron ;)
 
My only experience with balloons is avoiding them in or near airport traffic patterns.

"Arrow 123SA make a 360 for the balloon on final for 24."

"Is the balloon landing on 24?"

"We hope not."
 
I could never go up in one. I have a problem w/ heights. My family and friends don't understand how I can have no problem flying a plane but can't even look out the window of a building above the 5th floor.
 
We have quite a few on still mornings and evenings over Lancaster County.

One afternoon one of our girls (aged 3 or 4) came running in the house yelling, "Mary's in the sky! Mary's in the sky!"

We looked at her and then each other and shrugged the way parents do when a child says something apparently non-nonsensical.

:dunno:

She couldn't stop, though, so I followed her outside. She pointed up to the empty sky.

I walked around back behind the barn and could see a balloon about 75' AGL drifting over the field tree line.

That night Mary -- a co-worker who we had befriended and the girls knew -- called to tell us all about her great hot air balloon ride and how she had flown "right over your house!"

:idea:

Yep -- Mary had been overhead and called down to dear little Heather who could not understand what Mary was doing "in the sky."
 
Sac Arrow said:
My only experience with balloons is avoiding them in or near airport traffic patterns.

"Arrow 123SA make a 360 for the balloon on final for 24."

"Is the balloon landing on 24?"

"We hope not."
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We took a balloon ride in Colorado Springs about 10 years ago. We departed from a field east of the Broadmoor, and landed right between 35L and 35R on KCOS, on the south side of the airport grounds. I thought the pilot was nuts, but in hearing his conversations with ATC, it sounds like it was a common occurrence.

Still, I left thinking the guy was nuts.
 
Eat Mexican food and let 'er rip!
 
Jaybird180 said:
If baloons are subject to the air current they are in, how do baloon pilots fly to an intended destination? For example, during baloon tours; they go up then bring their passengers back to the same point of origin.
Click to expand...

Here's the FAA Balloon Flying Handbook:

http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/aircraft/media/FAA-H-8083-11.pdf

Lots of good books on the subject; one book in my library that I think worth recommending is "Ballooning" by Anthony Smith and Mark Wagner.
 
Gerhardt said:
I could never go up in one. I have a problem w/ heights. My family and friends don't understand how I can have no problem flying a plane but can't even look out the window of a building above the 5th floor.
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x2 ... :eek:
 
There are some sites I use to look at on the internet that would give you a pretty good idea of wind speed and direction at various altitudes. I was suprised that sometimes the wind would be different every 70 - 100 feet. I am a balloon pilot as well. I really enjoyed owning one,my wife decided I needed to find something to do that did not require getting up at dawn and didn't need a crew.

It's a different kind of flying for sure. When you check the winds you usually go some place up wind to launch and try to fly back to your landing zone.
 
You don't "steer" the balloon, you adjust your altitude to get into wind layers that are going the direction you want to go at the moment. Occasionally you can get a "box" scenario going where the winds a couple thousand feet above ground are 180 (or nearly 180) degrees apart, enabling you to make a big vertical box motion and get close to your departure point, but it's fairly rare. I have been crew chief for a balloon crew for about 10 years now, I recall one event in Alpine, TX where I logged 14.8 miles on odometer of the chase vehicle trying to stay under the balloon, and he ended up landing about 400 yards from the takeoff point.

For anyone interested in seeing more, there is a balloon rally in Alpine on Labor Day weekend, come on out. No charge to the public, we'll be flying from the Alpine Casparis airport (E38) Sat, Sun and Mon morning at sunrise. 17 balloons are currently enrolled.
 
Where do you get your wind data? Is it go up and see what the wind is doing or some empirical method?
 
Re: Steering a Balloon

DGlaeser said:
The big balloon fiesta held in ABQ, at the beginning of October, takes advantage of local conditions called the 'box'. The winds literally change directions 180 degrees at different altitudes. This allows (most) balloons to return to (near) the point of departure.

To expand on the comment by 'Letsgoflying' -'steering a balloon' is pretty much an oxymoron ;)
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During the AIBF itself, you'll see balloons takeoff, then about 20 minutes later, pass by again in the same direction. If you're not paying attention, it might surprise you that they haven't flown around the world.

Here's a diagram of "The Box"

Albuquerquebox.jpg
 
Jaybird180 said:
Where do you get your wind data? Is it go up and see what the wind is doing or some empirical method?
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We will start with the official FSS winds aloft forecast which everyone almost universally ignores. At sunup as the pilots and crews prepare to inflate someone will launch a helium balloon (called a pibal, for PIlot BALlon) to judge the wind velocity at different heights. Usually whenever a balloon is released you can hear the call "PIBAL!!" reverberate across the field as everyone hears it and calls it out again, all work stops momentarily and all eyes are on the balloon.

It's quite common to see 90+ degrees difference in wind direction within the first 500 feet, the ground level winds are what you have to land in so that is of prime importance - the upper level winds will tell you what part of the neighboring countryside you can expect to be in for a landing.
 
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airguy said:
It's quite common to see 90+ degrees difference in wind direction within the first 500 feet, the ground level winds are what you have to land in so that is of prime importance - the upper level winds will tell you what part of the neighboring countryside you can expect to be in for a landing.
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I can vouch for this one as well. It's amazing how quickly the winds change direction if you change altitude. Even though it would not seem like something to use in what I fly, we definitely use it to pick up speed when we really need to. At some point, I need to get around to doing a balloon add-on to my certificate.
 
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