It
had been over a year since I had flown with helium balloons -- not out of any
conscious decision on my part, but due to the cancellation of one event I was
to have flown in, and the heartbreaking cancellation of another planned flight
due to a sudden gusty winds, after half the balloons had been inflated.
 As
one of the world's only regular practitioners of this sport, I felt bad
about not flying. Aside from being something I personally love to
do, cluster ballooning is my unique contribution to the human experience
-- flying with clusters of helium-filled balloons is a part of life on Planet
Earth because I do it. I suppose the man I saw on
TV who can drink milk and shoot it quite accurately out of his nose may
feel much the same way about what he does -- if so, we're both very sincere,
although I'd vote for my activity on aesthetic grounds. |
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With this in mind, I began planning a cluster flight for March 2001.
Unfortunately, March may not be the best month to schedule a cluster
balloon flight, even in Southern California -- and the winter had been an unusually
rainy one. The flight was postponed on March 3 (due to predicted rain
that never materialized) and again on March 10 (due to rain and mud).
Heading into the third attempt, I was getting pretty frazzled. Over the
course of the week before, March 17 was forecast to be sunny, rainy, cloudy,
windy or foggy -- depending on when you looked at the forecast. However,
after much anxiety, I did not cancel -- my crew had been very understanding
about all the rescheduling, but I didn't want to ask them to change all their
weekend plans for yet another week. So I hoped that the forecast Santa
Ana winds from the east and the also-forecast marine layer fog and low clouds
rolling in the from coast would cancel out in Temecula -- and, for a St. Patrick's
Day miracle, they did.
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began inflating the balloons at 4 AM. Celebration VII consisted of
eighty red, white and blue balloons, in a mix of five- and seven-foot sizes.
We finished inflating the balloons at around dawn. |
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My
crew began attaching the balloons to my harness. But for this flight,
I had something new planned. |
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had my crew attach a dozen balloons to my legs at the feet and knees, and
took the strings to a bunch of balloons in each hand. |
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Gradually,
the mistiness in the air gave way to morning sun. We heard on the radio
from several other balloonists who had already launched from nearby sites; they
reported acceptable visibility.
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I radioed to Ernie to go ahead. I could heard the roar of the burners as he put heat in the hot-air balloon. "I'm up," he said. At that signal, the crew pulled the pin from my quick-release. First slowly, then faster and faster, I began to ascend.
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The sensation of the balloons lifting me by my outspread arms and legs was amazing.
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Up I went!
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| Ernie
paced me in the hot-air balloon. We took turns passing each other
as we made our way up into the sky over the hazy valley. |
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Finally,
at about 2,500 feet AGL, we rose up above the haze. We could see the mountain-tops
poked up through the white mist. It was a pretty sight.
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a calm, beautiful float at several thousand feet over the Temecula
valley, I descended and began looking for a place to land. |
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A
large field beside the highway to the south looked good, but then I saw
my chase vehicles parked along a street I was rapidly approaching.
I made a hasty change of plans, and burst some balloons to descend into
a field beside one of the houses. I bumped up against a tree, and
threw my dropline down to crew, who pulled me down to the ground. |
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permission of the owner of the house, we then spent some time letting my
crew get in the harness to jump around with the balloons and fly up on a
tether. With the permission of the adults, we let the kids from
the house try it too, and gave them some of the balloons. |
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Celebration
Seven Crew |
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Version 2.00
