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!

Unrealized Expectations, but Goal Achieved

The final flight was tough on Team USA with most of the pilots taking a hit in the standings.  Though most Team USA Pilots would probably say they did not do as well as they expected, Team USA appears to have achieve the goal of getting the maximum slots possible for the 2016 Worlds by placing 7 pilots in the top 30.  Final standings for Team USA:  Joe Heartsill 8th, Rhett Heartsill, 10th, Andy Baird 12th, Paul Petrehn 13th, Todd Isley 16th, Johnny Petrehn 22nd, Herald Cliver 26th, Brandon Heavin 32nd, Mark Sullivan 44th, Gary Heavin 45th, and Andrew Petrehn 46th. 

Congratulations goes out to Yudai FUJITA of Japan, the 2014 World Hot Air Balloon Champion!

Entire Standings are here:  World Final Results

Pictures and final thoughts will be up by tomorrow.  Sorry for the delay:  traveling and cell battery issues

Possible last Flight?

With weather looming for Saturday morning tonight's flight looks to possible be the last flight of the championship.  The race director called a two part task (20 and 21 for those of you who are counting).  Task 20 was a fly in while task 21 was a pilot declared goal in the sky (required to be at or above 2,500ft.  Team USA responded well with many improving their positions over the course of the day. 

 Current standings can be found at:  http://www.balloonworlds2014.com/#!tasks-results/c1di0

Pictures are updated in previous blogs, and will have more in the morning.  Beautiful sunset this evening and every evening.

Friday AM, off the ground

Weather finally broke for a flight after a couple days off. Briefing time was pushed back to 7:00 am as ceiling was suppose to clear by then.   In the briefing the Race Director called a three part task, two HTZ's and a pilot declared fly on.

After holding at the field for some time, a supplemental briefing was called and the pilot declared goal was dropped.

Soon after a green flag was dropped, the launch became rather crowded as all teams tried to position themselves at the far north end of the CPL in order to get every advantage possible.

Pilots had to climb to 6, 000 to get the turn required, and the cloud ceiling certainly made things interesting as balloons and the ground were obscured at times and balloons needing to drop quickly (some of the most distrortion I have ever seen).

Results appear to be mixed accross the board,  with no one on Team USA appearing to be happy wirh their morning.

Landing was once again an adventure as this time it was in a muddy red dirt field.  This sugar cane field was in the process of being harvested.  Was amazed to see that it is all done by hand.

Last couple of things, as I sit here typinf this Todd is in "peeing" in a cup as he was lucky enough to be randomly selected for the new drug testing that was implemented this year.  In addition, Paul is in the Jury room officially protesting the scoring of task 16.

More to come and pictures.  Did I say the internet sucks here?

Wednesday PM and Thursday

Sorry to all for not getting this updated earlier.  Will try and get pictures up later so check back on this post later in the day.  Unfortunately, my Iphone went for a swim last night (Scott Armstrong is dead) so I may have to depend on others for pictures the remainder of the trip!

Wednesday PM:

Wind was again the issue of the day.  The Race Director called a two part task (Pilot Declared Goal via loggers and a Hesitation Waltz) with a common launch at the CPL.  Wind was rolling at 8-12 knots with gusts to 17.  After a lots of pibals, questions as to what goal to pick, and the watching of the many kites in the air, the two hour wait finally came to an end as the black flag was put up to cancel the flight.

The Race Director event took time to play a little soccer (football) with the local Brazilian teams.

Following the cancellation, Team USA all met a restaurant/bar for a little socialization.   This was an excellent place that actually had menus written in English and waiters who spoke it as well (kind of).  Best of all, they even had HAMBURGERS on the menu!  While there, we all got the word that the morning briefing was cancelled due to the forecast of wind and rain in the area.  That is when the night got interesting.

After a short stop at the Competition Center (the only place with reliable internet) to watch Mark Clegg's last broadcast as anchor of the evening news in KC (good luck Mark on your new endeavor), Team USA headed back to the Team Hotel's rooftop porch for a little home made Caipirinha's made out of the case of Velho Barreiro that was given to us by Anderson, the gentleman who organized crew and vehicles for us.  This is where things got interesting.  All I will say is that a good time was had buy all, minus a couple of cell phones.

As I am writing this, I got word that the Thursday PM briefing is cancelled due to the rain in the area.   Hopefully tonight will be a little quieter then last night!

Wednesday Stands for Wind

The weather here is starting to take a turn for the worse.  Wind and possible showers are in the forecast for the next couple of days.  With Team USA wanting and needing to fly this is not the news we wanted to hear.  Don't think it will be a "wash out" the rest of the week, but things look to be hit and miss.  All keeping our fingers crossed. 

Current conditions:

No flight this morning, 50/50 shot this afternoon. 

Interesting tidbit:  Erica figured out that with the average pilots expense to attend this championship between $10,000-$15,000, it costs approximately $1,100 per flight if every flight is flown.  Looks like the average cost per flight is about to go up!

Thermals!

Thermals were the story of the evening as the race director called a single part task this evening.  The task being a Hare and Hound.

Launch was at the airport (CPL) .  To say this was a crazy experience, is an understatement.  After waiting around for an hour for the green flag, as the hare started its inflation Todd and I realized we left the Logger at the hotel.  All I can say is I wish the GoPro would have been on the truck as Jonathan (local crew) and I went to and hotel and back.  As if Brazilans don't drive bad enough imagine one with an American yelling at him and a siren(yes Jonathan actually has a siren in his car).  The highlight of the trip was on the way back the Jonathan actually used this siren to pass a COP!  As it was happening I actually had one of this out or body experiences where you ask yourself, is this really happening.  I also remember asking Johnathan "is it ok to pass a cop", to which he said, "ya ya, no problem".  Keep in mind, this is not a highway, rather a one way street barely wide enough for two cars!  

Anyway, we actually made it back to the airport just before the hare took off.  Believe me, we made really good time!

Next was the launch!  For those of you who have flown Battle Creek, remember when Lou would would say it was "7"?  Ya that pretty much sums it up!  Our inflation was good, but soon as we let to of Todd he was bit by the first thermal of the day that first pushed him down, then up, then accelerated him to about 20mph in about 4 seconds.  Needless to say, it was fun to watch.  Not sure it was much fun for Todd however.

We quickly found the hare and was there shortly after landing.  All I can say is I have NO idea what the hare (assistant race director) was thinking when choosing this spot.  It required competitors to cross three sets of power lines, one being huge, within 200 of the target.  Believe me this picture does not do the situation justice.  

As for the flight, it required balloons to cross a rock quarry prior to reaching the power lines/target.  The first half of the field came a cross this area and did well one the target, the other half got hit by a thermal coming over the quarry and literally went 90 degrees in the wrong direction!  You know it is bad when intermixed with the balloons are about 40 turkey vulchers riding the thermals and not flapping their wings!  Needless to say, there were many baggies returned, including ours.  This flight will hurt.

After a long period of silence on the radio, Todd landed in an area that was rather rough.  Once again,  he turn on his charm and before long he was signing autographs!

Anyway, tomorrow is another day!