After last nights excitement, it was all too early at 0345 when the alarm went off.
John, myself and the crew started weather checks at 0430 and had the team assembled and vehicles rolling out of the shed at 0530. Once on the launch site there was all the useual preparations for a balloon flight with the added fun of layers of gear, wires, parachutes, bail out bottles and oxygen masks.
With the ski goggles on and radio ear piece in place, the world faded into the background a little with every noise, breath and even vision filtered more than normal.
After a few awkward moments clambering into the basket, the five of us were on board. Two pilots and three wing suit jumpers.
ATC at Alice were working John hard on the radios and I was playing burner monkey and got the fun of flying a lightly loaded and massive balloon.
The initial climb was pretty easy although it did not feel as light as I thought it would. In no time at all we were sitting on 800 to 1000 feet per minute so it was actually performing very well.
Passing through 5500 feet we started the exit procedure for the jumpers and by 8000 feet all three were outside on the jump platform. Still climbing at around 1000 feet per minute we had four minutes to the jump altitude of 12,000 feet.
Practice runs in the shed had shown we needed just over a minute for switch over to the bail out O2 bottles for the jumpers then they would be ready to go.
Jump clearance was obtained by John and the disconnection process started. We rounded out at 12,500 feet and initiated the descent. Disconnection was completed and at 800 feet/min decent speed I gave Glenn, Heather and Greg the thumbs up while hanging on the vent line.
The guys disappeared from view in moments and after directing the crew in the general direction we focused on our next challenge - flying this beast back down with only two people on board.
The good news was that it did it easily and was actually a real pleasure to fly. We maintained a solid 800 feet per minute for most of the descent with one burn at about 5000 feet to fill out the very soft envelope. A slightly longer burn at about 1000 feet slowed us up to 200 feet/minute and had me back on the vent again.
We rounded out 50 feet of the ground and flew into a nice open piece of dirt for a text book landing, dragging about 10 meters.
All in all the flight was successful with lots learned and tested by both the Jumpers and the balloon crew. Unfortunately the weather is messing with us a little bit and we have put all flights on hold for a few days as surface conditions are a little too windy for safe balloon flights.
