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Your Guide to Weather

10/15/2015

If you see a pilot looking at their iPad or phone, chances are they are looking at a weather app. Balloonists pay a lot of attention to weather. Walk by a crowd of them at Carolina BalloonFest, and if they are not talking about it then it has been discussed in the last few minutes. We understand it is a great mystery to people and we want to try to help. So....I got a little help from a special guest to give you a little weather and ballooning lesson.

Duncan Dunavent is a special member of our local ballooning community and most weekends you can find him helping crew hot air balloons. He has also attended the Great Eastern Balloon Camp for several summers, as well as a weather camp. Duncan is 14 and a student at the South Iredell IB School. If you see Duncan around the festival this weekend and have ballooning questions, I am sure he will be happy to help answer them. But in the meantime, here's some thoughts on the weather from Duncan!

Weather For Ballooning

Most people love to see hot air balloons at the festival and will come at any part of the day expecting to see them. However if you get there at 2:00, there will be no balloons taking off to fly. Did you ever wonder why?

Balloons only fly in this part of the country during the early morning, right after sunrise, and just about 2 hours before sunset. During the rest of the day the sun causes the atmosphere to become unstable. The winds will also probably be too high and unstable and the balloons need calm winds.

At Carolina BalloonFest, our Balloonmeister Sam Parks has the final say as to whether it is safe for balloons to fly. Even though the wind may be calm on the BalloonFest field, Sam and his team are watching how they look higher up and all around the area. It may be calm at 500 feet, but breezy at 3,000.

The balloons also cannot fly with rain around the area. Though it may be sunny on the BalloonFest field, it might be raining close by. The FAA will not allow a balloon to take off with a thunderstorm or rain within 10 miles of the field. Most pilots prefer that a thunderstorm be at least 75-100 miles away and not moving towards them.

Under FAA regulations (not just for BalloonFest, but across the entire USA) balloons must have a minimum of 3 miles visibility. This means if it is too foggy, they also cannot fly.

While the Balloonmeister has the overall say as to whether balloons can fly at the festival, most pilots have their own personal limits. Even if the Balloonmeister opens the field and allows balloons to fly, it is always the pilot's final decision as to whether they will fly their balloon.

The Balloonmeister and his team of experts spend a lot of their time at the festival tracking the weather. If the weather is looking iffy at the pilot's briefing (a meeting where they talk about flying conditions), then they put things on hold and continue to look at the weather before they make a final decision. Watch the flagpole. If the yellow flag is up, there is a delay as they watch conditions. If the green flag goes up, it means pilots are allowed to fly. If the pink flag goes up, the pilots gather for another meeting. If the flag is red, the balloons will not be able to fly.

If the pilots cannot fly, they try to see if there is anything else they can do that day. If the winds on the ground are low and stable, they may be able to tether the balloons. If it is night, may be able to do a balloon glow.

Pilots love to fly their balloons, so they are often the most disappointed when conditions don't allow for it to happen. You can be assured of this...if it is safe to fly, they will be ready to launch!

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A Talk With Our Pilots – Memorable Flights - Part 2

10/13/2015

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Hang out around any hot air balloon pilot for long, and the stories will start to flow. We wanted them to share some of these with you, so we asked them "Who was your most interesting passenger?"

Jack Ponticelli – “A feisty 97-year old woman. She always wanted to fly in a balloon. Her great grandson surprised her when he picked her up from the assisted living home and told her he was taking her for a drive in the country. Since she could not stand for extended periods, I put a chair for her to sit in during the flight. Occasionally I would ask her how she was doing. Finally she said, and I will never forget her reply, “I am fine. What do you think….I am going to die?” My reply was “I hope not during the ride.”

Madison Sharpe – “I would have to say Gray Gaulding has been the most interesting passenger I have flown. He is a 16 year old, from Statesville, NC that is racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.”

Anthony Seeger – “I flew the Watermelon Queen in Immokalee, FL this year. She was nervous at first, but started to relax and enjoy the flight after a few minutes.”

Bubba Winston - “Professional basketball player Ralph Sampson. At 7 ft. 4 in. Ralph simply scissor stepped into the basket, then had to lean away from the burner when I had to burn.”

Buddy Carter – “A crew member’s dad was dying of cancer and was wanting a hot air balloon ride. We broke him out of the hospice unit, with the doctor’s permission, and took him for a flight. It was one of the flights you never forget. He was still telling everyone about his flight up to the morning he passed from this world to be with his Heavenly Father.”

Charlie Schoebel – “Two naked girls when I was in my 20s. It was a paid flight and they wanted to have their fantasy flight.”

Wayne Fortney - "I flew the Ambassadress to Croatia in my basket once. She enjoyed her adventure and invited my crew and I to Croatia any time we wanted. It was quite the adventure."

Chris Sommers - "John Travolta, Kathy Bates, Wynonna Judd"

Clarke Harbold – “Any veteran.”

David Bristol – “Once I had country singer Ty England (Former backup singer and guitarist for Garth Brooks) start his concert from my balloon. I was tethered beside the stage and he was wearing a cordless microphone singing in my basket. I have also had many passengers get engaged in my balloon, several balloon weddings, and even one divorce!”

Bill Whidden – “Ted Turner. Flew him in his North Florida buffalo ranch. He wanted to land among his buffalo herd, which I didn’t think was a good idea. But he insisted, so we did. The buffalo took a few minutes to decide what they thought of the strange beast that landed and then stampeded – not once, but several times. I was reminded of the movie “Dances With Wolves” as they stampeded past and could only think about the newspaper would have to say the next day (“Ted Turner And Local Balloonist Trampled By Buffalo Herd”.”) By the way, do you know how hard it is to get buffalo poop off a balloon?”

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A Talk With Our Pilots – Memorable Flights - Part 1

10/11/2015

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One thing you’ll find out about most of our pilots….they have some great stories to tell! So we asked our pilots “Who has been your most interesting passenger(s) in your balloon. Tell us about your flight….

Sally Lidinsky – “I had the pleasure of flying 3 generations at the same time: a man, his daughter, and granddaughter. It was very cool to experience the flight from each of their perspectives. Additionally, this man was a long-time member of a motorcycle club and about 15 members of the club chased us on their motorcycles. It was awesome.”

Tom Rousch – “A Polish heiress. We flew in the Alps, landed next to a pub, and she treated us all to dinner and lots of beer. Our crew arrived very later, and we were all pretty inebriated. Lots of laughing and singing! My crew was not pleased with us.”

Tony Colburn – “I had a couple who had a reverse wedding. First they had the reception at the launch site, then they got married in front of the inflated balloon. After they were pronounced husband and wife, they got in the balloon and we flew off. The flight was uneventful but at the landing we had a champagne toast with the couple sitting on the bagged balloon.”

Ty Parson – “Had a young couple do an engagement ride, and we were so excited for them, but after the flight they confessed they were already married for two years. He had wanted to give her the ring in a balloon ride with another balloonist and the weather never worked out for him. We were so surprised and laughed so hard. Wonderful memories.”

Ed McDaniel – “My instructor David Stinebaugh. He always made things interesting and one morning when we were flying we got to see the space shuttle launch. That’s something you just don’t usually get to see from a balloon!”

Randy Lee – “Guys doing marriage proposals. We have done well over 100. We make proposals a memorable experience. They are interesting because of the way they propose with different styles and levels of nervousness. I can say everyone has dropped to their knee except one. One lady didn’t say no, but she did say she would have to think about it and gave the ring back to him. Had one leave the ring in the chase vehicle, so we waiting until after the flight for celebration. Had one to pin the ring in his pocket with a safety pin and his hands were shaking so bad I thought I was going to have to help!”

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Where Are Our Pilots?

10/7/2015

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2015 Fiesta Photos courtesy of Lisa Williams

It's a busy time in ballooning season right now. Some of our Carolina BalloonFest pilots are in the midst of Albuquerque's International Balloon Fiesta. For nine straight days, around 550 pilots are flying their skies, from about 50 different countries. It's quite the ballooning event.

Things are a bit different in Albequerque. They only fly in the morning there. They can't fly in the evening as we do in North Carolina, but instead they have some pretty tremendous balloon glows.

They are not immune from weather issues in Albuquerque either. Earlier this week the pilots said they went into their morning pilot's briefing thinking they would not be able to fly. Conditions changed quickly, as they sometimes do, and they were able to fly both mornings. For the pilots and spectators, day made!

One thing Carolina BalloonFest has in common with Albuquerque... we share "our" balloonmeister with them. Statesville's Sam Parks has served as the balloonmeister in Albequerque for the past three years. The balloonmeister is essentially the "head balloonist".... the person who, with his team of experts, is making decisions such as to whether the pilots are safe to fly. There are a lot of administrative duties that go with the job, and lots of responsibility. This means lots of stress. He's responsible for all of the launches that you see taking off at Albuquerque, all those balloons. As you see pictures come from there, or videos, or spend some time watching their webcams, know that Sam is in the midst of it all.....working hard to make sure that it is a safe event for all.

While some of our pilots enjoy Albuquerque, a few will be flying closer to home this weekend. Our friends in Anderson will be hosting Balloons Over Anderson. The pilots should be in perfect flying shape when they come to Statesville,

One thing that we are proud of.....we have not only the highest quality balloonmeister, but we have high quality pilots at our event who love this sport. We'll tell you about some of them in the coming days. We're so excited that they choose to come to Statesville, many year after year. We're proud of our event, and our city, and excited to share the great ballooning heritage with folks from our area and those who come to visit. We're looking forward to seeing you.....we hope you are excited about what is to come!

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On the Breeze Blog

Your Guide to Weather

A Talk With Our Pilots – Memorable Flights - Part 2

A Talk With Our Pilots – Memorable Flights - Part 1

Where Are Our Pilots?

2015 Fiesta Photos courtesy of Lisa Williams

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