A platform in the sky

EICHER: Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Hot air balloons. They’re graceful. Colorful. They deny the pull of gravity.

And they offer recreation, as well as competition opportunities for their owners. But what’s the real draw for balloon enthusiasts?

REICHARD: WORLD Senior Writer Kim Henderson takes us to a hot air balloon festival to find out.

KIM HENDERSON: The Natchez, Mississippi, Balloon Festival is an annual event—nearly 40 years strong. It draws participants from all over the United States. The balloonists enjoy flying over historical homes and the Mighty Mississippi.

PILOT: The river’s a pretty challenging flying event for a lot of pilots. It’s very intimidating going across the river.

But it’s not the river that’s causing trouble this afternoon. It’s the wind.

JASON: The wind direction is not good from here right now. It’s kind of shifted a little bit, and launching from here will put us out in the forest with no place to land. So we’re going to pack up and move spots.

AUDIO: [Rolling up nylon balloon envelopes]

That’s Jason Gaines. His St. Louis crew is rolling up the huge nylon balloon envelope that’s stretched out across the ground. Their balloon is called “Sugar Momma.”

Jason Gaines and his crew moving to another site. Photo by Kim Henderson

They’re joking around, having a good time.

MAN: I think the number one word for ballooning is uncertainty.

AUDIO: [PROPELLERS BLOWING AIR INTO ENVELOPE]

A couple miles away, balloonists have decided the conditions are right for flight. One crew is inflating its envelope with air from a large fan.

WOMAN: It’s the same as an airplane propeller, actually. And it really puts out a whole lot of air. And it inflates the balloon much faster.

AUDIO: [FLAME IGNITES AND BLOWS REPEATEDLY]

Next, the roar of burners fills the air.

A man is perched near the edge of the balloon’s envelope. He’s aiming two propane burners at the air inside, warming it with the flames. That’s what makes the balloon rise.

A pilot heats the air inside the balloon envelope. Photo by Kim Henderson

Before long, several balloons are upright, baskets attached. Passengers are climbing aboard. And they’re up!

CROWD: Bye, balloon! Bye, balloon.

Then the chase is on. It’s hard to tell where the balloons are going. Trees block the view. Traffic. But the official chase teams have radio and phone contact.

A Memphis balloon named “Sky Bird” lands on a piece of church property. It was a short, but memorable, ride. Especially for a young woman who went up … and for her co-workers waiting on the ground.

WOMAN: She’s our front office manager. And we’re sponsors of the balloon race. And she got to go up!

WOMAN: It was amazing. It’s breathtaking. All the views in the air, compared to on the ground. It’s amazing.

Walt Rudy is another pilot here for the festival. His love of hot air balloons started when he was in high school.

RUDY: I worked for a regional pizza chain out of Champaign, Illinois, called Garcia's Pizza in a Pan. It was the home of the Flying Tomato Brothers, because they incorporated (and this is back in the 70s) a hot air balloon in a lot of their promotionals. It was called the Flying Tomato.

Rudy was part of the chase crew for the Flying Tomato. Since then, he’s racked up 39 years flying over America’s heartland.

He can tell you the history of ballooning.

RUDY: Do you know who the very first passengers were that flew in a hot air balloon in 1783? The very first passengers were actually a rooster, a sheep, and a duck.

He can tell you the rules.

RUDY: Balloons are aircraft. So they require an annual inspection or an inspection every 100 hours of flying time.

He can tell you about the balloon itself.

RUDY: We go by cubic feet for how we size balloons and that goes, it's 1000s of cubic feet. Our particular balloon is 105,000 cubic feet in volume, which means 105,000 basketballs can fit inside the envelope of the balloon.

Hot air ballooning is an expensive sport. It’s also an endangered sport. Fans from its 1970s heyday are aging out, and new enthusiasts are needed.

Ballooning has risks, too. In January, three passengers and their pilot died in an Arizona balloon crash.

Rudy says that’s very uncommon.

RUDY: We hit some power lines one time back in the ’90s, but everyone was safe. And that was weather related, not bad weather, just weather that we didn't understand at the time.

Today’s balloonists are using today’s technology. Rudy has an iPad app for ground tracking, and they have better maps.

RUDY: We have tools that tell us, that forecast the winds at various heights in the altitudes so that it gives us an idea of what to expect.

Walt and Deb Rudy Photo courtesy of Walt Rudy

For Rudy and his wife, Deb, ballooning is something they can enjoy together. One simple, yet romantic, flight stands out in Deb’s memory.

DEB: We didn't have any crew that evening, so he took his bicycle. And he and I inflated the balloon by ourselves. He strapped the bicycle on the back of the basket. And we got to fly together. That was really kind of fun. And landed. And then he rode his bicycle back and got the van and we packed up.

Ballooning alone is a rare thing for the Rudys, though.

They’re usually up in the air with passengers, and their bird’s-eye views are filtered by a Christian lens.

Rudy says in the basket, it’s easy to believe.

RUDY: I've seen some very beautiful stuff. We are blessed because God has provided us with a platform to see things that we can share with others that most people aren't able to see.

MUSIC: [Up, Up, and Away — The 5th Dimension]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Kim Henderson in Natchez, Mississippi.

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