October 31, 2013
11/01/13 This past weekend the father son duo, and Michiana Balloon Rides pilots, of Jim and Brian Kunze competed in the “Balloons Over Killbuck” hot air balloon event in Anderson, Indiana. This event featured the Montgolfier cup, to find the best hot air balloon pilot in Indiana. Twenty Five pilots competed in the event, with nine of them being from Indiana.
The event started slow with activities Friday and Saturday being canceled due to winds being too high for a safe flight. Sunday morning the winds settled down for a cold but enjoyable competition flight. The morning started out with balloonists watching test balloons float into the air to decide where they wanted to launch to put them over the targets. Each pilot received four bean bags with streamers attached to them. Each bag was to be thrown at different targets along the flight path. The pilots would receive points based on the distance their bags were from the center of the target.
After an exciting competition flight Brian ended up scoring on all four targets. The winds were not as kind to Jim as he ended up missing the targets but he still received competition points. Once all of the scores were tallied Brian ended up with a score of 2,609 points, which was good enough for eighth overall and second in the state of Indiana by only 72 points. Finishing first overall was Bruce Wood from Colorado and taking the Montgolfier cup for the fifth strait year was Chris Smart.
“It was a fun experience, I learned a lot competing against the best pilots in Indiana and some of the best in the country. Hopefully they hold the event again next year and I will be able to apply what I learned today to do better. “
Michiana Balloon rides offers flights from May till Late September over Plymouth. For more information and pricing visit www.michianaballoonrides.com or contact Brian at 574-780-4560.