For the defense of my Great Forest Park Balloon Race (GFPBR) Championship, the outlook wasn’t very good when I woke up on Saturday morning.  We don’t fly morning flights at the GFPBR and that’s a great thing.  We get to sleep in.

 

Last night was a lot of fun on the field for the glow.  After packing the equipment up we went to the Pilot’s Banquet at the Park’s Golf Course Clubhouse.  We had a great dinner and left early.  We got together with a small group of pilots and crew in the parking lot for hangar flying.  It was a decidedly different ambience, but we had a nice time catching up with ballooning friends from around the country.

 

I checked weather around midnight on Friday evening after I left the party in the parking lot.  The forecast was for winds in the SSE 10-15 knot range for the flight period.  The forecast was for increasing winds throughout the flight period.  These wind forecasts were “marginal” for competitive flying and “unfavorable” for paid commercial flights back in Lake Geneva.  With the forecast issued at 12:30P