Where Are Our Pilots?

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!