On the September 2005 long weekend fourteen balloons gathered in Grande Prairie (GP) for the Canadian Championship of hot air ballooning.  When the registration went out, my thoughts were: what a great place to fly, an opportunity to learn and I may even get to see a target.

Arriving on Thursday, the balloon stories (BS) were already starting as crews tried to psych each other a bit. Before briefing on Friday, Heather and I found our assigned crew - two eager 'young balloonists' David and Brandie, as well as Nancy, an adult balloon enthusiast. Later on in the week Heather-Jean and Glenn joined us, as time permitted. Throughout the event they all gave us tremendous help, encouragement, good humour and laughs.

My objectives were to be safe and fly for fun, in the direction of the target.  Flying in the direction of the target proved quite useful on several occasions allowing a reasonable placing in the tasks.  Task master Dale Lang provided us all with challenges for both thinking and flying.  Seeing the tasks performed also proved to be fun for the whole crew.  Of particular interest was the last task on Monday morning when the real talent came out. Some pilots drifted a metre above the target to drop their markers on a double task assignment. All of this fun, organization and challenge came as a result of the support (volunteers, crew, the German band, hospitality lunches, and host hotel) from the GP community.  Everywhere, someone was available to give you help.

Each event and flight can bring learnings, such as: throwing your marker from a great height is possible but much better results can be achieved by throwing from below 100 metres, turning on the GPS before take off is advantageous, GP is a nice area to fly, when your tie-off vehicle is dragged during inflation it is time to re-assess, a PDG is difficult to achieve, very calm conditions provide an opportunity for a bag over.

The results of the Canadians are posted in other articles.  The organizers and the GP community did a great job.  At the end of the weekend, I had seen and scored on the target, flown safely and had a blast!

Richard