Okay, I’ve been at it for almost 10 days.<\/p>\n
This all came about REALLY fast. Not the wanting to build a balloon,
\nbut the actually building of the balloon. I was planning to figure
\nout how to string out the building over about 3 or 4 months in Ohio.
\nWith basically none of my own equipment, it was going to be tedious
\nand involve a lot of borrowing and favors…then Dan re-iterated a
\nprevious offer to let me use his shop for the month.<\/p>\n
I instantly switched into high stakes, stay up all
\nnight-balloon-planning\/material-ordering mode. 5 days later, I was on
\na plane, out of the sunny south to the snow-laden NorthEast.<\/p>\n
With lots of cautions from my parents, not to get in a hurry and be
\nreckless, and with the overly-benign, and encouraging, support,
\nadvice, and help of Dan, I have spent most of the last 10 days,
\ncutting and sewing, ordering and planning towards the completion of my
\nballoon by the end of the month. With a few (small according to Dan)
\nblunders in my material ordering, I am feeling quite confident that I
\nwill leave Amherst with a completed, 58,000 cubic foot balloon
\nenvelope!<\/p>\n
The cuttoff is the beginning of February when I trek back to Ohio with
\na pit-stop at the conference for the Pennsylvania Association of
\nSustainable Agriculture. I plan to make this trip lugging 95 pounds
\nworth of nylon fabric, cables and webbing!<\/p>\n
Excited that I have nearly 100 percent of my own balloon in twelve
\ngarbage bags containing 60 foot long strips? EXTREMELY!<\/p>\n
At the beginning of February, I will have an envelope, which still
\nleaves the logistics of a bottom end and the FAA paperwork and
\ninspection to figure out. With a budget that is whittling down, it
\nwill probably be in my best interest to wait through a few more months
\nof winter and exploring options before I nail down a bottom end for my
\nsystem. I’m in the market for tanks and a burner and probably will
\npurchase a Boland collapsable basket within a year.<\/p>\n
It will be hard to wait to start flying again, but the winter in Ohio
\nisn’t ideal anyway. I’m also on the lookout for an Amateur Built DAR,
\napparently, a new designation of DAR that can examine my work so I
\ndon’t have to wait 6 months for the FAA!<\/p>\n
Thanks for your interest. If I can answer any questions that will
\nhelp you or satisfy your curiousity, do not hesitate.
\nKevin.Herschman@gmail.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Okay, I’ve been at it for almost 10 days. This all came about REALLY fast. Not the wanting to build a balloon, but the actually building of the balloon. I was planning to figure out how to string out the building over about 3 or 4 months in Ohio. With basically none of my own […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.xlta.org\/buildlog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}