The Cannon Lady played an integral part in the festivities associated with this summer’s South County Hot Air Balloon Festival that I attended with my girlfriend in North Kingston, RI. The Cannon Lady is exactly what you’d imagine her to be: a lady who gets shot out of a cannon! The stunt, as corny as it seems, was truly amazing to behold. Picture a barely-five-feet-tall gymnast don a helmet and climb to the top of a human-sized, truck-mounted cannon. From there she waves to the audience and slides down into the barrel.
Three, two, one, BOOOOMMM!
She’s flying 60ft high through the air, tucks into a front flip, and lands in a springy next nearly 80 ft away. Incredible! If the visual isn’t enough consider the physics. It turns out that the Discovery Channel did a piece on her in which they calculated her maximum acceleration at roughly 10 x gravity! These stats should at least gain the respect of a few fighter pilots and astronauts amongst us. Lucky for me I was able to catch her at the peak of her flight and well on her way to completing that front flip!
Notes: The photo was taken with my Cannon EOS Rebel T2i DSLR camera with EF-S 18-55mm lens . The camera was set to sports mode and used an aperture of f/7.1, a shutter speed of 1/1000s, and ISO 100. The focal length was 55mm,
-Kayak Dave