SDR-Hammer

Yesterday I scheduled a hot air balloon ride for the wife and I. For grins I asked the chief pilot what was involved to add a balloon rating to my ticket.

After over an hour of talking with this guy I learned I could get a commercial balloon endorsement (which also means you’re a CFI as well) with less flight and instructor time required to get a private pilot SEL. Also he said he could use some pilots. I could handle having a part time job flying.

Any balloonist out there? I'm seriously considering this.

aerotow1

Yep,
I have a lighter than air endorsement on my Multi-engine, Inst, Commercial ticket. Balloons are alot of fun and alot of work too. If you go for it you should enjoy it.
Dan

khodges

My Feedback: (1)

I never had a license to have endorsed (but I did sleep in a Holiday Inn Express). My ex-brother-in-law was, maybe still is, a hot air balloon pilot. Took me for a ride on my 40th b'day along with a friend of mine. Damn straight it's a lot of work, flying one of those things is as much intuition and esp as true flying skill, trying to find air currents that are moving the direction you want to go. We took off from a field next to my Mom's house, which is about a mile from Lake Hickory, in NC. We rose to about 350-400 feet, found some air going toward the lake, with my b-i-l's idea to do a "Splash 'n' Dash" where you drop down and skim the water, do a short burn and regain altitude.

One other thing that's a lot of work flying a balloon--judgement, which my ex b-i-l was a bit short on when it came to judging descent rate. I felt like we were dropping too fast, and said so, my buddy really didn't know s*** from shinola about any of it, and my b-i-l said we were O.K., and since he is pilot-in-command, it's his decision NOT to do anything about our 200ft/min rate of descent until we were only 75 feet or so off the water, with a ground speed of about 10 mph; finally realized (how astute of him) that we were REALLY going to splash, hung on the burner, and we had barely begun to slow when we buried the basket (and us) shoulder deep into the lake.

Now, there's several things that happen, all at once and nothing first; since we have forward momentum, and the basket is suddenly full of water and its drag is markedly increased over the envelope's, the whole shebang suddenly leans and we are acting like a big scoop. Now, even though the basket isn't solid (it's woven wicker) and water can run out, it's coming in 100 times faster than it can leave, so we go deeper, and the three of us are each hanging on to a corner support (and my b-i-l still pulling the burner lanyard)trying to keep our heads out of the water without climbing into a 200,000 BTU propane torch, the envelope has leaned over until its side is about three feet off the water. This all happens within about 5-10 seconds.

Physics takes over and saves our ass, sort of. When the basket hit the water, it immediately unloaded the envelope (gas bag), and with the load gone, it's effectively lighter, so it has more effective lift. Left alone, we would rise back out of the water without doing anything, but the burner has been going full blast for 10-15 sec, is glowing yellow by now (a dangerous condition) so it is pouring even more heat into the envelope, greatly increasing its lift. We're still dragging forward through the water, but down to a walking pace, and the bag is starting to straighten up. Suddenly , the basket clears the water, and we start climbing like a Saturn V. (For you balloon afficianados, this is a 45,000 cubic foot envelope) My b-i-l finally has the presence of mind to let go of the burner lanyard. The altimeter no longer works, but the rate of climb does, and it is on the peg. We go what must be over 1500 feet in no time, and our esteemed pilot decides we need to vent and start looking for a place to set down (it's 8pm EDT in late August) and we're still drifting right down the middle of the lake. This balloon has a valve in the top that, if opened, can't be reclosed, and a smaller one that can, but it's hard to regulate the amount of air you're venting; we're way the hell up in the air, can see for miles, but finally the rate of climb levels off and we start back down.

By now, we have an entourage of boats that have been following us, and we have dropped back down low enough and actually stabilized our altitude around 200-300 feet, and can converse with the boats. Our next problem is that the lake is starting to make a bend and we're going to be back over trees soon, with nowhere close to set down, and the distinct possibility of power lines in our near future; so I drop a mooring (tie down, whatever) line and ask one of the boats if they can tie it off and start for shore, with the idea of changing our direction enough to allow us to reach a large lawn on the lakeshore, about a 1/4 mile from us. This could be potentially dangerous, it's a 3/4 inch braided nylon rope, a lot of strength, but not enough to hold the balloon down if we start a climb; we could either rip a basket support off, pull the boat's cleat out, or snap the rope, which would be like a big rubber band. Luckily it worked, and our drift headed us toward the lawn, and the boat cast off the line and wished us luck.

One other thing; when we got dunked, the radio got soaked and we lost contact with our chase. They had no idea where we were, and our guess was they were on the other side of the lake (why should anything go right?). We managed to land and collapse the bag without further incident, kissing good ol' Mother Earth repeatedly and often (at least I was); my b-i-l acted like it was all part of the plan. The chase finally figured out where we were, (they WERE on the other side, about 2 miles downstream), but a local who had seen our entire escapade from the bank lent his pontoon boat to the chase crew (my sister and another friend) who came up the lake. We loaded the envelope and basket onto the boat and returned to the chase truck, gave the pontoon owner $20 for his trouble, and went home and finished drying off.

Thing is, I'd go back up in a balloon in a heartbeat, it's a relaxing, peaceful ride, you're moving at the same speed as the wind so it's like you're in still air, watching the world rotate beneath you. But I sure as hell wouldn't go with my brother-in-law again.