Links

 Weather:          

    1.   DUATS:    This is the official government site and like all things governmental, it is hard to understand and takes more time than other sites to get the info. You can get there by clicking here.

More government info that is only good if you know how to read it is the Bradley TAF (terminal area forecast)

    2. Intellicast.com:       There is seldom a day (even a day when I have no immediate plans to fly), that I don’t get up and first thing in the morning get on the internet and go to this site. To go there Click here.  The bluer the map, the happier I am.

    3.   National Weather Service:       Another good balloonists weather site is http://www.srh.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/MAZ008.php?warnzone=maz008&warncounty=mac015  It belongs to the National Weather Service and shows the forecast for western Hampshire County.

    4.   Airsport.net:   Airsport.net , is a great aviation weather forecast service (which is rapidly becoming my favorite site)

    5. Other Good Weather Sites:       My process toward choosing to fly, and where to fly, begins several days before the flight. I use the four sites above, as well as:

NOAA's New England wide winds aloft forecast is very helpful.

AccuWeather has 15 day forecasts and good hourly weather

NOAA terminal info for the Pittsfield airport shows 24 hr. details. All other airports available too.

The Weather Underground 5 day forecast

BalloonWeather.com 7 day forecast

I have customized my own Ballooncasts Ballooncast#1 shows Albany, Bradley & Pittsfield information is very good.

Ballooncast #2 shows Westfield, Chicopee and Orange info. Both Ballooncasts show winds aloft for Bradley, Albany and Boston.

Both Intellicast & Airsport have easy access to area radar scans.

 The final step is to call the FAA Flight Service Station and talk to a weather briefer.

Other Local Balloon Sites:

Check out these other local balloonists –

            Paul Sena’s Thunderbuster balloon of Worthington Ballooning can be seen by clicking here. Paul is probably the best contour flying balloonist in the area (which is saying a lot since this area has some damn good pilots) Flying with him is always a unique experience. Paul can accommodate up to five passengers in his larger balloon.

            Dick, Lisa and the others at Pioneer Valley Ballooning headquartered at the Northampton Airport fly regularly in the Connecticut River Valley where there is lots to see. Check them out at http://www.pioneervalleyballoons.com

            Paul Stumpf of Stumpf Balloon Works runs the area’s Aerostar / FAA certified repair station. His site at  http://www.stumpfballoons.com/  is mostly concerned with his balloon & equipment sales and balloon repair business, but I also happen to know that if you ask, he can give you a private flight in Central Vermont that will really be something special. Paul has more hours aloft and knows more about ballooning than anyone I know.

Bearded Collies:

            The other Volk family obsession is our love of our Bearded Collies, an old Scottish highly intelligent herding breed. Learn all about  our breed, meet our dogs, and get the details about the Award of Merit our Rosie got at the Bearded Collie National Specialty and all of Rosie's other achievements by clicking on Cuthbert Kennels - our other website. Pictured at right is our Champion Kamelott's Lady Abbey, the loving and proud mommy of Champion Cuthberts Christmas Rose.

Other Interesting Sites:

            As I said on the crewing page, a great way to learn more about balloon crewing is to check out the website http://www.heritagedevelop.com/crewing/ Another site that describes crewing is http://users.chariot.net.au/~madhatter/mhat7.shtml

            I am a member of the Balloon Federation of America (as are most licensed balloonists). The BFA site has lots of information and links. http://www.bfa.net

        Bored?? Try the Hot Air Balloon Simulator. This well designed game does a good job of simulating what it's like to fly a balloon. See if you can beat my best combined score of 0.04 meters. Or better still click on http://users.tpg.com.au/idea/simulators.html to go to an Australian website that has half a dozen different interesting simulators.

           I could list a lot more ballooning sites, but the best link to find a ton of ballooning sites is http://www.euronet.nl/users/jdewilde/index.html which is entitled World Wide Web Balloon Pages (There’s gotta be 1500+ sites listed). Check it out. Another good website to find all sorts of ballooning information is Hot Air Balloon HQ This site must have 100 separate pages of info most with dozens of links per page. Also check out http://community-2.webtv.net/georgeagarciajr/AlbuquerqueBalloon/ That site is a link to another 1,000+ balloon sites from all around the world. On this listing I found the web address for the Montgolfier Society of Indiana. This web site proclaimed itself to be "Indiana's Largest Balloon Club" which got me to thinking - there's the Connecticut Lighter Than Air Society and the Granite State (NH) Balloon Association, but I know of no other ballooning club in Massachusetts. That makes the West West Cummington Balloonist's Association (which is the two man club formed by Scott Magoon and myself when Scott moved in next door with his balloon.) Don't go looking for our site; there is none - maybe some day. But we've already had our first balloon festival when Scott and I took off from his back yard (seven people attended). Maybe that's how that little event out in Albuquerque got started. For a picture of Scott's balloon see the Photo page.

            To better understand where all my "bull" comes from, visit my sister's  website at http://www.manurehappens.com/  My multi-talented sister, Hilma "Volcano" Volk is a cowboy poet out of Coeur d"Alene Idaho. The cowboy poetry in her book Manure Happens  is available for downloading on that site.

 Places To Stay:

            For things to do, things to see, places to stay, etc. in the beautiful hidden hills of Western Mass (the area I like to call Baja Vermont) check out http://www.hidden-hills.com

           Accessible through the Hidden Hills website are a lot of B&Bs in this area. Another place to check out locally is Hill Gallery, a mountaintop B&B chock full of art. Click here for their website. as B&B listings. If you want to fly over Berkshire County and enjoy the many cultural attractions there, I frequently fly out of the back yard of Marios Restaurant in New Lebanon NY. With the prevailing winds being from the west that normally brings us into Pittsfield or Lenox. Next door to Marios is the Spencer House, a beautifully restored historical house in the heart of Shaker country. Click here to go to their website.

Flying low over the upper end of a beaver pond near Bisbee Lumber in Chesterfield, MA. August 2002