At last “check-in” with the sew-master, we were up to 13 sets of gores, this is all the panels put into single gores ready to be sewn together.
Progress is going well, and getting quicker and quicker with each stich.

I am starting to get some of the “other” bit’s organised here in Melbourne, such as load tapes, flying wires, carabiners and other miscellaneous bits. We have decided to go with rapid links to connect the flying wires to the load tapes, this is an expensive move but I think it’s worth it. I had a win yesterday by finding a source for those sticky temperature thingo’s, as well as the bit’s to make a tell tale flag, if anyone wants one of those sticky things let me know, I had to get a pack of 10. Only downside was they have to come from the US of A.

I updated to cost spreadsheet (on my pc, not of this site) last night to check in with how much everything has cost so far. So far I have spent a hair under $8000, sounds like a lot? Well actually more than 90% of that is faric, so apart from the fabric everything has been quite cheap, quite an ironic thing to say considering you need fabric to build a balloon, yet you have to take into account that I chose first grade fabric, and super expensive hyperlast. There is an extra ~$1300 due to hyperlast.
Also, we have what I estimate to be about $1500 in left over fabric, so if that get’s used on another balloon, the cost of this one drops by $1500.

Depending on what fee’s I end up paying to get the all CoA’d and registered,  Ithik the whole “exercise” will end up costing either a hair above or below $10,000. More than other homebuilt balloons, but still 3rd the cost of a new one

Speaking of registrations, today I sent away the forms for registration, so once that gets processed and OK’d the balloon will (hopefully) be designated VH-XUP (thanks to Adam for the suggestion). As far as names go, its a balloon, not a person, it doesn’t need a name, for now at least. If i had to, at the moment I would call it PITA.

That’s about all that’s been going on lately, I did buy a new (secondhand) car last week, so thats one step closer to a complete ballooning outfit I guess.