Tidbits About Brazil, the trip, and my thoughts on the event!

Your perspective of Brazil:

 Reality of Brazil!

That was meant to be funny, but is very true in many ways.

Red Dirt

I am not sure what the deal is with the red dirt down here, but it appears to get everywhere.  Not sure if it is just the color of the dirt which makes it seem worse then back home or if it actually is.  What I do know is that you have it under your nails, in your hair, on our legs, and in your nose after not just one, but EVERY FLIGHT.

Restrooms

Not sure if people were giving me a hard time or not, but from my understanding you are actually suppose to wipe (you know what I mean when I say wipe) and put it in the TRASH CAN.  Then they want you to wash your crack with the same hose I have on my kitchen sink.  All I can say is I tried it once, not doing it again!  Oh ya, it was cold water too.

Oh ya almost forgot, the toilets do turn the opposite direction!

Double oh ya, apparently this symbol is for the men's restroom.

Food

Food is amazing in Brazil.    There are these restaurants where you basically have an all you can eat buffet, but instead of the meat being on the buffet, they bring it around to you.  Amazing part, is that you have a “green & red” marker on your table and as long as you keep it green, they keep bringing you different kinds of meat every three-to-five minutes.  Trust me, you cannot keep up! 

Pineapple was some of the best I have ever had!

Just like in the States, some of the best places were mom and pop restaurants!

The People

The people were extremely friendly.  You hear about lots of crime occurring in Brazil (will admit there was razor wire and bars on almost every building), but I can honestly say I never felt worried about my safety.  People (an I mean everyone) were extremely welcoming and wanted to help in any way.  One thing that I was amazed at is how willing people were to help out  (directions, lifting something, …..).  The people around Rio Claro also were very excited to have Americans in their city.  I even had a lady stop me and want to take my picture because I was from the US, then wanted me to point out the balloons from Team USA so she could take a pictures of only them!

Impressions of the Event

Because this is my personal Blog,  (no one asked me to write it and I did not ask you to read it) I will be honest in MY IMPRESSIONS of the event by grading the various areas:

1)   City of Rio Claro:  B+:  The town was very supportive, both in how they treated us and their attendance daily at the launch field.

2)   Flying area if you are a pilot:  A:  As a pilot, it is a GREAT place to fly.  You can literally land anywhere you want as landowner permission was pretty much a non-issue).

3)   Flying area if your are the crew:  C-:  As a chase crew, it is probably one of the worst places your pilot can fly.  You are pretty much either chasing through a 9 foot tall sugarcane or are in the middle of a city with massive traffic and “2 dips” every block because they do not have storm sewers (water runs down the roads).

4)   Local Event Organization:  B+: The event organizer, though waiting to the last minute on a few things, seemed to pull everything off without a hitch.  The Competition Center was well organized (the site was the local community college) and had staff there pretty much 24/7 to provide you with anything you may need.

5)   Race Director:  D--:  Before I begin this section I will again clarify that this is my impressions and my personal Blog!  I do not speak for anyone else and do not wish to force my impression on anyone else.    Here it goes:  I have been to many balloon rallies over my 20 years as a pilot, anywhere from the local weekend balloon rally to the Nationals and ABQ.   I have also been the race director at various events including Indianola.  When I agreed to attend the Worlds with Todd I figured this would be a World Class Event from the Race Director side of things, but understood that there maybe some logistical and cultural things we would have to deal with.  Unfortunately I found just the opposite.  For a World Championship I was highly disappointed in the Race Director.  Here are a few examples of what I observed:  a) Almost daily mistakes on the task sheets, b) just plain rudeness during briefings, c) picking targets that were unachievable, then refusing to change them, d) lack of or poor discretion in rule enforcement, and e) a lack of concern regarding safety.    The best specific example I can provide is the last flight.  The flight was to be a Hesitation Waltz with a fly-on pilot declared goal to follow.  The three goals for the Waltz were clearly not obtainable from the “get go”.  As we went on over an hour hold because of low ceilings and rain in the area, the race director chose to play soccer on the launch field.  Following the hold, a supplemental briefing was held in which a new goal was added to the Waltz (nothing else changed).  The goal was less then 1 KM away from the CPL (you actually flew from one end of the run way to the other) in light and variable conditions.  So from a safety stand point here is what occurred:  58 balloons launching side-by-side, all having to be off the ground in 30 minutes (a launch extension was denied) flying to a target less then 1KM way in light an variable conditions.  Oh, I forgot to mention the ceiling was approximately 1,300 ft.  As the flight progressed into the pilot declared portion, it began to rain.  Not massively hard, but hard enough we had to have our windshield wipers on for most of the flight and many had to inflate their balloons later in the day to dry them out.  To top it off, I as am watching Todd and the 58 other balloons come into the first target (keep in mind launch and target was at the airport), I hear over one of the event radios the Race Director call and say that he is at the local Cafe’ and is asking how many seats he should save.     Only word I have for it is ‘unbelievable”.  But again, it is just my perspective.

Balloons laying out over crown lines.

Coming into the target.

Misc:

This was a place we drove by numerous times through out the week.  Our local crew tried to explain what exactly it was, and from what we could understand through the translation, the name pretty much spoke for itself.

Balloons and horse/buggy!  + it's raining!

Did I say the red dirt gets everywhere?

All in all however, I had a great time and it was a great experience.  The people of Brazil and the local crew we worked with were GREAT!  I want to thank Todd Isley for allowing me to go on this adventure and look forward to Japan in 2016!

Go Team USA!