Balloonia

A couple of weeks ago we got a call for some help on with a fashion shoot that a friend of Matthew’s was doing, it was for some LA fashion magazine, I forget the name. They wanted to shoot in the desert and with hot air balloons.

About mid-day the wind picked up. Then it started to rain. For the last shots were doing a high wind inflation and launch. (sane people would not attempt something like this.)

With the basket tied off to the back of a Chevrolet Suburban we did the cold inflation, then applied heat, and the wind picked up, the balloon started to drag the truck, I had a hold of the parachute ( a rope connected to a rapid deflation valve in the top of the balloon.) and the tie down rope broke. I pulled, Steiger grabbed on to the rope too and we picked up speed ad started to go up. We let go and watched the balloon go away, except Mo still had hold of the crown line (a rope that goes to the top of the balloon for stability.) This was his first day working with a hot air balloon and as he was getting dragged away we were yelling “let go, let go” and he was yelling back “I can stop it” he let go because he couldn’t.

It only went about a miles before cooling off enough to drag the basket and fill it up with dirt and another mile before it stopped.

And this is the final product as published (ok the pictures are much bigger with better color in the magazine .) (see the feet sticking up, I carried her there and placed her in the basket like that)