When I was 10 years old, a Hot Air Balloon landed in my yard. It was big, it was loud, and I had no idea what an impact it would have on my life.
Not the landing itself of course, but as the years have gone by, balloons have landed in people's yards. Some get angry, some take some pictures and walk away, and some ask a million questions and want to take a ride themselves. Those are the people I like the best.
Balloons are a wondrous thing. It's a sphere of fabric attached to a wicker basket floating through the sky, as if by magic. Everyone wants to know how it works, how to operate it, what kind of fuel it uses (propane, in case you were curious!).
After ballooning for 15-16 years, I can say I've learned a lot. I know how they operate, what it takes to set one up, and why we can't decide where it goes. I've also learned sometimes ballooning can be the best cure for a bad day, and the people you meet in this business are some of the best around.
I wanted to share some of that knowledge with my readers as well, because balloons are cool.
1. How do you set a balloon up?
Different people all have different processes in the minutia of setting up a balloon, but the variances aren't drastic. Basically, the balloons are packed in balloon bags, and the balloon and the basket are put in a trailer that transports the balloon around. Our company has a few different launch sites, depending on wind direction, so we'll travel to those launch sites and take everything out of the trailer. We hook the balloon up to the basket using steel enforced ropes, and then we inflate the balloon with cold air first to make the balloon round and open enough for the flame to come through without burning the fabric.
Once the balloon is big enough, the pilot will light the burners and then blast a steady flame into the balloon to give it heat and make it rise. The balloon slowly rises, and then everyone jumps in. Once the air is hot enough to weigh less than the air around it, the balloon rises and the ride begins!
2. Is it scary? Will I get motion sickness?
No, and no. I know a lot of people are afraid of heights, I am too! But I've been up many times, and one of our pilots is weary of heights as well! You're surrounded by a basket and you have a steady floor beneath your feet. Once you're in the air, you look out, not down (Unless you really want to) and there's handles and uprights (the things holding up the burners) to hold onto.
And there's virtually no motion while in the balloon either! Unlike airplanes, you're going with the wind. There's no intense wind in your face, no turbulence, no nothing. It's calm and peaceful and really relaxing. You can see deer running through the woods, birds flying alongside your basket, trees gently moving by. Seriously, don't be scared.
3. Aren't they dangerous?
Not anymore than a car is, or swimming in the ocean is, or ziplining is, or any of the other things we do on any given day. Accidents happen. But we all know the news stations don't report on ordinary things like "Balloon ride goes off without a hitch!"
All the stories you see in the news are few and far between, and every time I see one, I cringe, because I get people asking me the next day "How can you do that? Didn't you see the news story?" Of course I did. But I also hear about car accidents every day and still drive around. The company I work for has been flying for forty years. Have we had any incidents? None. Have I known anyone personally who has been injured or had their life threatened by a balloon? Nope. And it's rare to find anyone in the industry who has.
4. Can you steer them?
No again! What we control is altitude. More hot air = rising. Less hot air = descending. Sometimes wind patterns change at different altitudes. A lot of times we pick up speed at higher altitudes and slow down the closer we get to the ground. We might also pick up a left shift and begin moving that way, or opposite. But we cannot decide where to go and turn a wheel and land in the spot we want to. If we miss a spot, we keep looking.
We don't know where we're going to land, but we have a general direction on where we're going to go. We look for a big, open area free of obstacles such as power lines or trees. Then we keep our eye on a spot and see if we line up on it.
5. What does the crew do?
The crew does everything, minus flying the balloon! We help set up the balloon by helping the pilots, we hold the skirt open to direct air flow while inflating, we hold the fans and we help the passengers with any questions they may have.
While the balloon is in the air, we're in the vehicle, trying to keep the balloon in our sights so we can be there when the balloon lands. A lot of crews use radios to communicate with the pilot should we lose sight of them. (It happens a lot. There's a lot of trees.)
Once the balloon lands, we help get the air out of the balloon, pack it back into the bag, get everything into the trailer, and make sure nothing is left behind.
6. Are balloons in media portrayed accurately?
NO!!!!! I always laugh at myself when a balloon comes on in a movie or a commercial, because they're always portrayed in the most hilarious ways. People who aren't balloonists wouldn't know the difference, and I get that, but to a balloonist, it's almost infuriating!
Either there's no pilot (whose flying the thing?), the pilot never touches the burner, there's sandbags hanging on the basket, or other simple, really silly things that wouldn't seem out of the ordinary to some, but I nitpick it to death.
7. What does it take to become a pilot?
Did you know balloons are federally registered aircraft? You can't just go out and buy a balloon and start flying it the next day. My dad is a pilot now, and I watched him work hard to become one. You need an instructor, which can be a pilot with a commercial license, to begin training you. You need so many flight hours, both instruction and solo (yes, solo!) before you can take a written test and a flight check. A flight check is performed with another instructor who goes up in the balloon with you and makes sure you know what you need to know. Then you get your private license, which does not allow you to take paying passengers up.
Once you get your private license, you need to do everything I said above again to get your commercial. Commercial allows you to instruct and take up paying passengers. Which is great when you run a business with balloons giving people balloon rides!
8. Are there balloon events?
Definitely! There's balloon rallies, races, and festivals all over America and the entire world. One of my favorites is the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, held annually in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It's one of the biggest balloon festivals in the world, with over 100 balloons taking off from a field in a span of an hour. Pilots from all over the world come there as well, and many of the balloons have fun shapes as well!
There's also special racer balloons that are shaped more like footballs for aerodynamics. These pilots expertly either race to a finish line, or maneuver the balloons using wind currents to hit a designated target with bean bags or something similar. It's really cool to watch them in action!
Honestly, I don't know how I got so lucky to spend so much of my free time with these things, and the people involved with them. These people have quickly become my second family, and I always have a conversation starter with this kind of topic! Hot air balloons are probably one of the coolest things to exist on this planet (in my not so humble opinion) and if you get the chance to, I honestly believe you should take a ride.
