Hot Air Balloon Festival

entropic remnants

Hall of Famer
Name
John Griggs
Here are the stills and the film teaser from my fun time at a hot air balloon festival with an "all access" pass to go down with the balloonists.

I got interviews and all kinds of stuff and I'll be making a video of it. Here's the initial "teaser" for the film and some stills. I'll link the overall set of stills thus far at the end.

I'd definitely overrunning my flickr with balloon festival pics, lol.

[video=youtube;CVzsmXHRE6w]

This is the inside of an old balloon that is no longer flightworthy that they inflate with fans so folks can look inside. I'm at the "wrong end" shooting through a tear in the fabric.

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Hot Air Balloon Festival: Inside by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

This Christine who is the pilot of "Patriot" which is the worlds tallest flying balloon at the moment. It's 165 feet tall, has a wingspan of 115 feet and is modeled after the space shuttle only it's 40% larger than the real shuttle!

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Hot Air Balloon Festival: Patriot's Pilot by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

This is Christine getting down and dirty on the final hot air inflation. The balloon is so large that even with a dual high-power burner setup it still takes and hour to get the balloon hot and capable of real lift. Here the balloon is starting to really tug on the basket (on it's side) and the tethers holding it down. It takes a whole tank of fuel just to get the balloon fully hot.

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Hot Air Balloon Festival: Patriot Rising by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

But Patriot is initially inflated enough to use the burners using two fans each driven by an 8hp gasoline engine. Even that takes quite a while.

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Hot Air Balloon Festival: Fan Inflation by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Patriot really is pulling here as the temperature builds -- restrained at this angle by a crew managing tethers on the other side.

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Hot Air Balloon Festival: Patriot Lives! by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Sadly, for various reasons, Patriot did not get off the ground on Saturday and ended up being a display at the "balloon lighting" in the evening.

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Hot Air Balloon Festival: All Lit Up and No Place to Go by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr

Full set (which will grow over time) is available here:

Chester County Hot Air Balloon Fest 2013 - a set on Flickr
 
I think if I were a rich eccentric, I'd travel everywhere by hot air balloon.

man on street : hey look, Luke's firing up the hot air balloon
other man on street : yup, he's going to the grocery store for a gallon of milk
 
Very cool John. I always see those guys flying around Chester County and I've even seen a few landings. But I never knew they had a festival. Count me as one of those people who doesn't want to fly! I'll get on the occasional jet to get somewhere far away and I don't lose sleep over it, but I'm never entirely comfortable about being thousands of feet up in a metal tube, and I don't think I'd feel any better in an open basket!

-Ray
 
Hot air balloons and blimps have always been a thing of magic to me ever since I was little. The bright colors, the way they float, just magic.
 
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