This morning Paul, Johnny, Steve and Joe flew a pseudo-competition flight. Johnny, Steve, and Joe flew into a "target" at one of the common launch areas, while Paul inflated there for a Watership Down-type scenario. The elder Petrehn took on a stowaway, as Nick Donner hadn't filled his tanks yet and decided to ride along. Although the competition wasn't as intense as it will be in a few days, it was a good chance to get all the GPS's, computers, and various other items tested in the air. Team managers Al Nels and Brad Teymeyer started getting their bearings by running a few pibals through the theodolite. Even the event officials got in the act, with Bob and Dottie Humbert handing out some of the Royaltek loggers that will be used during the competition. The devices are similar to a traditional GPS in that they record a competitor's position (both lat/long and altitude) throughout the flight. However, unlike other navigational units they have no display screen - just an on/off switch. Data download is performed exclusively via Bluetooth, which is very different from the traditional method.
Although the competition doesn't begin until Monday morning, today the event "officially" starts with Registration (as opposed to the Pre-Registration that we attended earlier in the week) and the Opening Ceremony/Lunch at 1:30pm. Tonight the team will fly more VIP's from Ford. Tomorrow includes practice flights in the morning and evening, with a 1:30pm General Briefing in between.
3 comments:
We were watching live feed from Albuquerque and then checking out your blog..it's all so exciting! Can't wait for your competition to start and watch our pilots score, score, score :)
thanks for the daily updates and photos. Crissy and I look forward to your updates! Good luck and bring it home!!...Rick
Cool blog Jeff! Can you give us a rundown on what team USA is flying? Type of balloon, size, fuel on board, laptops, etc? Whats the "cockpit" of a world championship competitor look like?
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