In June of 2018, the San Angelo Lions Club sponsored the second annual Balloonfest. Here are five frames of balloons.
Fire!
Here is an early morning shot of a member of the Heartsill family firing up one of their Texas Star balloons.
Incoming!
These balloons are descending toward a target area in the Glenn Middle School football field. The pilots of the balloons have to drop a weighted flag on an X in the middle of the field. Closest flag wins!
Stealth Approach
A shot of one of the Orange Crush balloons floating low to the ground searching for a favorable wind.
Final Approach
Orange Crush in the lead, followed closely by Texas Star.
Lineup
The Texas Star balloons put on a show after the competition. Unfortunately, there will not be a third Balloonfest. Apparently, there is too much wind in West Texas for safe ballooning. (Who would have guessed?) The recommended wind speed is 5-10 mph. The balloons do not fly at 15 mph. In 2017, the balloons did not fly at all.
Bonus Frame – Pimal
See the small helium balloon? It is known as a pimal, a small balloon released to help gauge wind speed and direction.
These photos were taken with a Canon 6D wearing either the Canon 100-400mm f4-5.6 or the Canon 24-70mm f2.8 lens. The photos were processed from RAW files with Darktable, a piece of free and open-source software (FOSS) available for Windoze, Mac, and various flavors of Linux.
Not the Albuquerque Balloon Fest but looks like fun and the shots are good.
Thanks! Even thought the scale is somewhat smaller, I still enjoyed the event. I regret that they will not be doing it again.