Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta – Crewing

Corinne Family, Sightseeing 4 Comments

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Escapee Boomer’s group has a reputation at the Balloon Fiesta.  That includes the Boomer’s success in providing crews when needed. 

Our first exposure to ballooning happened the day before the Balloon Fiesta officially kicked off.  We helped with Albuquerque Aloft.  That is where pilots and their balloons head out to the schools to show local school kids what ballooning is all about.  We were paired with a pilot named Keith Sproule.  He’s from New Jersey, owns 16 balloons (visit http://skychariot.com/), and comes to the ballooning events at Letchworth, Dansville, and Wellsville (my fellow New Yorkers know where those places are…Mary Ellen is now hoping to get on his crew when he visits next summer).  The name of Keith’s balloon is Ali Cat.  He and his wife had just bought it, and this was their first flight in it.

Here we are, a bunch of Boomers, up and ready to go at 6:00 a.m. We had NO CLUE that this was about to become our routine for the week.
Hooking the balloon to the basket.  Yes, flashlights were very necessary this morning.
Laying out the “envelope”.  This was our first up close and personal experience.
The pilot, Keith, sent up the Pibal.  That is short for Pilot Balloon which is actually just a black helium balloon.  Keith watched it to see what direction the winds were going.  The balloon is out of the frame of the picture, but you can see all of us watching it go up.
Ali Cat is now standing up.  Talk about a kid magnet!  Parents and kids showed up at 7:00 a.m. to watch.
Ali Cat is up!  The balloon flew out of our school yard and landed at the next school yard over.  It was a short but successful flight.

With the school event over, it was time to be matched up with our crew.  Most afternoons the Boomers have a Happy Hour.  There were announcements, beverages, etc.  This first day, we got our crew assignments.  Some balloonist come into town with no crew at all (as in Jim and Janelle’s case).  The crew Mary Ellen and I joined came with a crew of 4, but were happy to take on more!

The Boomers at Happy Hour!

Mary Ellen and I joined the crew of the balloon called Big Top. Jim was with Major Award (Janelle joined us later that day). Saturday morning we wandered to our assigned grid locations.  We were on L5 (red circle below).  Jim was at the far end of the field at W5 (blue circle).

The Balloon Launch Field map with all the grids labeled.

How do you find your spot?  There are white grid markers at each grid intersection.  The grid letter/number are on the marker.  There is also a little light at the top so you can don’t trip over the markers in the dark.

Here you can see the grid markers in the daylight. The yellow arrows are pointing at three of them, although you can see others in the picture.

Every morning starts with a 6:00 a.m. pilot’s briefing.  The field officials discuss the weather, any problems that are occurring (like clothing getting sucked into inflating fans…more on that later), issues, etc.

The pilot’s briefing. The officials are in a short tower, have a sound system and a big screen TV to tell the pilots all they need to know for the day.

We found our grid and eventually found our pilot Mark.  Mark and his crew are from Colorado.  Big Top is a 30 year old, hand painted balloon that Mark recently acquired from his ballooning and real estate mentor.  The balloon is very special to Mark and irreplaceable.  Thus, he is a very cautious pilot.  He only flew once during the Fiesta when he was sure of his landing spot…landing this balloon in a cactus covered field is NOT an option.  

Mary Ellen helping to get the basket out of the trailer.
A tarp is spread out to protect the ballon from the wet grass. It also serves as a natural barrier to keep people off the balloon.  Vicki and Dave are bundled up…it was cold until the sun came up.
Mark has the balloon (also called an envelope) attached to the basket and is putting his radio on the basket upright.
Cold inflation is about to start. This is the type of fan I mentioned earlier that clothing was getting sucked into (not us!!!). Tammy, standing to the left, was the keeper of the fan and kept people away from it.  The fan is pointed at the bottom opening of of the balloon.
Cold inflation is working…the balloon is blowing up due to the fan blowing air into it. I was holding the throat open, so I was able to sneak of picture of Mark inspecting his balloon from the inside.
Once the balloon is cold inflated, Mark climbs in the basket and starts the propane burners. The balloon fills with hot air and can then “stand up.”  For the crew, it’s time to do “weight on.”  That means you use your body weight to keep the balloon on the ground.  You have orders that if your feet leave the ground, you need to let go.
There is Big Top fully inflated!
As I said, Mark is a very conservation pilot. The one day he did fly, he took two of his new crew members, as it should be.

We crewed with Mark and the Big Top team for five days. Mark wanted to take Mary Ellen and I up in the balloon on his last day, but the winds were just not in our favor. In fact, the field officials shut down launching just after Mark made the decision to not go. Still, we had an excellent time working with these guys.  They were a great group!

Our crew!  L to R…Dave (President of a material handling company in Denver), Tammy and Todd (Husband and wife, wonderful people!  Had us over for green chili stew one night), Vicki, Mark, Mary Ellen, Alex (an Albuquerque resident who wanted to help…we got a dinner invite from him too, but couldn’t make it), and me!

Jim and Janelle’s crew was much more active. Their pilot, Brian was from Missouri and his balloon was called Major Award. The name of the balloon is appropriate, Brian won a big award at the company he worked for…they asked what he wanted as his award and he stated “a hot air balloon”. So that is what the company bought him. 

Major Award flying by in one of the competitions.

Brian showed up without a crew. The Boomers were there to help! Jim got a balloon ride his very first day of crewing. In fact, they landed in the box (that grassy area) next to our RV. Jim had a short walk home that day after the balloon was packed up!

Janelle (on the right) helping to pack up Major Award.

Janelle also got a balloon on her first day of crewing!

Janelle and pilot Brian getting ready to take off.

I gave Janelle my camera that morning.  I’m glad I did, she got some great shots.

Janelle got a picture of Big Top from the air.
The launch field is almost empty by this point.
Balloons everywhere.
What goes up must come down. These balloons are heading for a golf course landing.
This is Major Award’s chase vehicle. Can you spot Jim? He’s there.
When all else fails, land in an industrial park. That’s where Janelle’s flight ended up at.

Jim crewed 8 days in a row.  That’s a lot of early mornings. Janelle left midweek and that left the Major Award crew a person down. Plus some others had to leave, so Jim got lots of hands on experience. I’m pretty confident Jim could launch a balloon on his own now….not that he could fly it. But he got to experience every part of the process.

This post has gone way longer than I intended.  There is just so much to tell!  Let me toss in one last thing.  How do you suppose that many balloons launch in a coordinated, safe manner?  It all due to the Zebras and ZITs (Zebras In Training).  All over the field you see people dressed in black and white stripes.  These are your Zebras.  You don’t do a thing unless they tell you to. These are highly trained professionals! 

All the Zebras have radio head set to talk to the Launch Field Officials.  They also have whistles to “talk” to the balloon pilots and a series of hand gestures that they use.
This Zebra was telling the balloon launching to watch out for another balloon next to them.
The Zebras get very creative with their outfits. This is a mild example. Every zebra themed piece of clothing must get snapped up during the weeks just before Balloon Fiesta.

The next blog post will have pictures of the tethered ride Mary Ellen and I got, gas balloons, balloon goodies, and pictures of the Special Shape Balloons! It will be all eye candy!

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