My father was flying in the 2006 National Championships.  I had offered to come up and help as his ground team.  Anderson is a wonderful place to fly however, they chose to fly over town on many of the competition flights.  Pilots had to choose intersections of roads as their targets and the judges had chosen several road intersections as well. 

On one of the flights my father was having a difficult time identifying the specific intersection that was his target.  We had already driven to the intersection and were attempting to help him over the radio.  I used my sighing compass to get a reading on Dad and told him to use his compass and look at 233 degrees.  That was the line from him to us.

Dad came back on the radio and informed me that he was unable to do that.  I asked him why?  He said because his compass was hanging on the back of the passenger seat in the van.  I said WHAT?  You do not fly with a compass???  So I said we will turn out vehicle toward you and turn on the lights. Just see if you can find the van with lights on.  He was slipping slowly to our west (loosing the left).  He came back on the radio a few moments later and said he could still not identify where we were at.

I said listen and we will honk the horn on the van.  He said go ahead and we did.  He came back on the radio and said I think I heard it but could not figure out where you were.  By this time he had slipped so far to the west there was no saving him.  He had missed this target.

After the flight I went to the local Wal-mart and purchased an Air Horn and a Flare gun!  The next morning we had another flight over town.  This time I was READY!  We were not going to miss targets in town... Or at least I thought. 

Sure enough the second target that morning was in town.  A specific sub division of homes when a nice intersection near the middle.  This was target #2 that morning.  Father made a great drop on target #1 but again was unable to identify the target in town.  We were at the target and ready!  We started off with the Air Horn.  He could hear it but not identify where we were.  Again I gave him a compass heading to look for and we shot off the flair gun.  Still no luck as he was slipping off to our north.  So we used BOTH!  We blew the air horn and shot off the flair gun and blew on the air horn a few more times.  No luck as we watched our father fly to the north of our location.

Fast forward to the 2008 National Balloon Championships.  We as a family decided that we would all fly together in the nationals that year.  The first issue we had to tackle was getting qualified. 

Having all three Thompson's together in the National Championships would be a huge family event.  As it turned out we were all able to all qualify and we were heading to the National Championships with all three Thompson family pilots flying in competition.

After the master briefing to start the event my father made the following comment.  I believe that when we fly I should take the lead since I have flown here before.

I looked at my brother with my eyes wide open and a smirk on my face.  I replied to my father, "Dad,  Your the pilot who can't find a target with your ground crew shooting off a flair gun and blowing an air horn.  You are not the guy we should be following!.  I will take the lead and you and Jon can fly behind me.  That is all I do in Florida is target fly with GPS. So that was that.  We would choose the PDG's together and select our launch sites together but I would launch first and fly lead.  

We were assigned pilot numbers 13,14 & 15.  Father was number 13, I was number 14 and brother Jon was 15.  We flew an elbow flight mid week and we all finished in the top 4 on that task.  I placed a nice note on the podium for the Balloon Meister David Levin.  The note read.. "Please fly two or three more elbows, Team Thompson".  I got a good chuckle from David and he read the note aloud to all the pilots. 

By the end of the week we were all sitting in 13th, 14th and 15th place.  We were telling everyone we thought you were supposed to end up in the place of your pilot number.  On the last morning Father did just a little better and moved into 12th place overall.  Jon and I were in 15th and 14th as our pilot number indicated (LOL).  However we were all thrilled to have ended up in the top 15 in the country at the same time.