25 April 2008

Balloons on ANZAC Day

| DarkLadyWolfMother
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I managed to get out to the lawns in front of Old Parliament House this morning to watch the balloons.

Due to the weather (low fog and very little wind) it was decided that the balloons weren’t going up today. A few were inflated for the becamera’d masses, including the Kookaburra and the Shamrock, but none lifted off.

Talking to one of the balloon crews, I found that two balloons did in fact take off, despite the conditions. They took off on the opposite side of the lake and were the RAAF balloons. Opinion agreed that they probably did it because they were inexperienced, but undoubtedly got their adrenaline rush.

Did anyone see those two go up?

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They showed the RAAF ballon floating in the fog above the war memorial in the news last night on TV, while reporting on the RSL wanting a ban on any other activities before 1pm on Anzac day. Looked pretty funny, with RAAF emblazoned all over it.

Felix the Cat7:01 pm 25 Apr 08

I went through the Parliamentry Triangle at about 7.30am and saw the Kookaburra and I think the Shamrock balloon being inflated. Wondered what all the traffic and people was about as I got near to PT as I didn’t know at first about the balloons. It was damn foggy most of the morning, would of put a bit of a dampner on things.

nice pic. thanks. i liked my sleep-in this morning

This is one of them as it slipped through the fog http://www.flickr.com/photos/d-eye/2439567763/

I should add that by the time I walked over to the balloon festival area there was no wind, but during the walk from the War memorial across there was some, not much but some.

They took off somewhere on the north and east side of the lake and they passed over just after the end of the Dawn Service. The first popped out of the fog at 6:20 and crossed over just south of the roundabout at the War memorial end, the other popped out 8 minutes later.

There was wind at ground level and there was more at the height they were at because they were moving at a fair clip.

I doubt they are inexperienced as they are based here and do quite a few shows around the place. http://www.raaf.gov.au/balloons/index.htm

Now what I really want to know is why Canberra only rates Hawk trainers while Sydney gets F/A-18’s and the Hawks didn’t do the flypast even though they did pass by in the distance around the time they were meant to do the fly over during the March ceremony. Quite interesting considering that the PM and the head of the defence forces who is an air force officer were here.

DarkLadyWolfMother12:43 pm 25 Apr 08

I’ve no idea of the time. I was told about this at about 7:30, after they’d (apparently) come down. Unfortunately the person was in a rush to tell other crews that things were cancelled, so I didn’t get a lot of time for detail.

When did they go up? Coming down Anzac Pde after the dawn service you could not see a single damn thing across LBG, and it was no different going across the Commonwealth Ave bridge.

The RAAF balloons went up? Now that’s ironic! I wonder if the local RSL will shoot them down?

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