Ballooning for Real
Returning for my second year as a “pilot without a balloon” I decided it was time to make an important decision - to stop ballooning on a very part time basis or take the plunge and buy my own balloon. I took the plunge. I had no idea what I was letting myself in for!
I found the perfect balloon - an immaculate 1996 Aerostar 90,000 cubic foot balloon with only forty hours in service. This was the easy part. The next thing to think about was how I was going to transport my balloon. Many people simply load their balloon into the back of a pick up truck. I didn’t have a truck. The solution to this was to buy a trailer, which I did. The only problem now was that I had never driven with a trailer. This was definitely becoming a learning curve – going forward was fine but backing up was a total joke. Then the trailer had to be slightly customized to allow for any propane leakages - I hadn’t even thought of that complication! Eventually I found someone to make the alterations. Now I had the balloon, I had the trailer, I was ready to fly - in theory.
I arranged to meet Beth Wright Smith and take my first flight - I knew I would feel much more confident on this first flight with the benefit of her expertise. The next hurdle was to find people to crew for me. I found two men who were familiar with balloons and who promised they would be at the proposed launch site for my first flight. I arrived at the launch site with the balloon, Beth arrived as well. The crew did not, and their cell phones were turned off. I was in trouble. This sadly is a constant problem and one of the reasons why having good, not to mention reliable, crew is of the utmost importance.
Luckily Beth knew another pilot on the field who had extra crew and lent us two of them. One of these was Jake Jacobsen, who, after crewing for me for nearly two years, got his balloon pilot license. For the past eight years he has been my co-pilot. I was incredibly lucky. The flight was perfect as well and I was convinced, at least momentarily that this was the life for me!
The next big hurdle was finding a name for my new balloon. It seems to be a tradition when balloons change hands for their names to change as well. There is a lot of pink on my balloon - friends began calling her the “girly balloon”. In the end, because of the white diamond pattern on the envelope, I called her “Lil” after Diamond Lil, but from time to time she is still called the girly balloon.
Over that summer I found reliable crew and became friends with other pilots. It was time to take on Fiesta - by myself. About this time Rick Balencia, an experienced crew chief, joined us. Rick was (and still is) brilliant and made everything run smoothly and it all seemed completely effortless. Over time though, he too became a pilot and has recently bought his own balloon (and is encountering all the problems I did!).
At this stage in my ballooning odyssey, I have a perfect crew. I cannot stress too much how important this is. In the beginning I think one tends to be grateful for anyone who will come out early in the morning and help, even if their performance is less than stellar. It is important that crew know the locale intimately - often here in Albuquerque we land on remote dirt roads. Someone in the crew needs to know how to get to these roads, or you could wait for a long time once you land. With my crew, we check each other (yes, they check me as well) when putting the balloon together - we all have “off” days and it is always good to double check. Over the years we all have all found our forte in launching the balloon - one person is brilliant on the crown line, another on the fan. We have also become quite speedy in assembling the balloon - we keep trying for personal bests! At this moment, the fastest time we have achieved from the moment we unload the balloon to the moment of take off is 14 minutes. We were quite proud of ourselves that day!
That first Fiesta was both frightening and exhilarating - actually every Fiesta has been that way. We had thought, in our naivety that we would do everything and wouldn’t it be fun to try to hit/grab a target.
The first event we tried, was one in which we had to launch from off the field and fly onto the field. The launch went smoothly, the wind direction was good and we approached the field. Then it became a nightmare. Balloons were descending in front of us quickly and very close - in fact they were all around us going up and down quickly. It was quite frightening and we decided perhaps this wasn’t going to be something we wanted to do. We gingerly found our way out of the melee.
One thing this brought home to Jake and me, aside from the fact that we didn’t have the nerve for this type of thing, was that it is a really good idea at Fiesta to have two pilots in the balloon. While a passenger can report on what he or she sees, another pilot actually knows what to look for and can make sure whoever is flying knows of any dangers.
Having failed miserably in the “fly in” event, we tried the event in which you “fly off” to the field to targets marked with an X. Certainly this would be less congested and might even be something we could do - well, it all sounds fine in theory. We quickly discovered we couldn’t aim very well - well, perhaps I should say it is more difficult to aim at something from a moving balloon than we imagined. In any event, we weren’t good at this either.
This skill, however, could possibly be improved. We decided to practice throughout the next summer on the west mesa in Albuquerque so we would be ready for the next Fiesta. The only question was what we should use as targets to perfect our aiming skills. At this time the west mesa was a building site - housing developments seemed to appear in a matter of weeks. This is quite sad for balloonists because we are losing our open space but the new homeowners are happy.
We decided that there was something that was everywhere and quite a good target and that was a porta-potty. We began aiming for them and over the summer became quite proficient at this sport and no, we did not injure any of them. Sadly while we may be experts in aiming for porta-potties, we still cannot hit the targets at Fiesta.
By Mardi Cone