Tennessee (Cont'd)
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Wayne dropped back down low, where the winds were very light. That might have been the smart thing to do, but I didn't want to begin bursting balloons so early in the flight, and the haze hadn't really coalesced into fog. So I allowed myself to drift higher.I drifted south over the city and was soon headed right toward the Eastman chemical plant. I dropped some ballast to gain altitude and avoid going directly through the smoke plumes -- I am told that Eastman is in full compliance with all regulations regarding emissions from their smokestacks, and while I have no reason to doubt that, it seems unlikely that the standards were set with this precise situation in mind, so why take chances? Unfortunately, by ascending I had risen into a wind layer that was moving at about 20 mph to the south. I was also up high in the haze, where it would be hard for my chase crew could see me. |
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When I got back down to about five-hundred feet, I was flying down a long valley, running parallel to a large highway. I called Ernie on the radio, but got only static in response. (I later learned that they were one valley over, out of radio range due to the hills) |
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I called a few more
times just in case they could hear me, describing the area I was flying
over -- it was a large four-lane highway, which I figured there couldn't
be all that common. |
I passed over some outlying factories
and manufactured homes, and then I was out in the country. The houses
grew further apart and the fields grew larger, crisscrossed at random
by rusty rows of powerline towers. The highway to which I had been running
parallel petered out into a two lane road. |
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Finally, with no word on the radio from crew, I decided it was time to land. Out ahead of me, the country grew more hilly, and it looked like there were pockets of fog here and there -- not the kind of conditions I wanted for shooting a landing with all the powerlines around. I started to descend toward two open fields separated by a line of trees. As I dropped in, the wind speed dropped, so it looked like I would not clear the trees. However, I was low on ballast at this point, and rather than try drop ballast to go back up and shoot another landing, I just continued in and grabbed onto the top branches of one of the trees to stop myself. The balloons supported all but a few pounds of my weight, so I was able to stand up in the very highest branches and look around. |
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Happily, I saw someone walking up in the field below. It turned out that a couple of spectators at the launch had followed me in their cars from Kingsport. I called down and asked if they would lend me a hand. After making them go from one side of the trees to the other and them back again, based on the shifting winds, I pulled myself from tree-top to tree-top to where I could thrown down a line, which they used to pull me down to the field. I came down without bursting a single balloon. |
After about ten minutes
my crew arrived. Everyone who was interested had a chance to get in the
harness and go up on tether. Then, we put all my balloons away, and returned
to Kingsport, my Tennessee adventure successfully concluded. |
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Celebration XXVIII Crew Chief: Ernie Hartt Special Thanks to: Tri-Cities Regional Airport and inflation volunteers; Wayne Fortney (Adventure Time Hot-air Ballooning); Indian Path Medical Center, Kingsport Fun Fest Balloon Rally (John Scott). Photography: David Grace, Joe Wilson, Emily Windes, John Ninomiya |
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