The Albuquerque
Balloon Festival
The Largest Hot Air Balloon
Launch in the US
Albuquerque, NM
October 9th, 2004
Everybody,
at one time or another has looked
up into the sky in the early morning, or late evening to
see a large hot air
balloon, lazily drifting by. This picture of quiet bliss may be
accompanied with an occasional whoossssh as the burners fire a blast of superheated air to keep the balloon afloat. We happened to be passing through
Albuquerque at the time when the Great Balloon Festival was going on. This
is, by far, the largest gathering of balloons in the U.S. Although the
festival has many activities, the one we specifically wanted to see was the
"night glow". This is beautiful and powerful event.
Hundreds of balloons, all tethered to the ground, fire up right at dusk and fill
the park with a myriad 
of shapes and sizes, weaving and glowing in a fabulous
color array. We arrived much earlier than was needed. The walk
from the parking lot was long but gave us a good panorama of the park which
measured several thousand square yards. Although there were many vehicles
on the field, no balloons were visible yet. It was time to wander down the
boardwalk, checking out all the offerings of trinkets, hats, and of course
food. I even stopped at the SPAM trailer for a free sample. Yum! As
the balloonists began their unpacking, we headed for the field to find out just
what makes these incredible things fly. Part of the fun of the pre-flight is
looking at all the trailers that haul the balloons around. Most of these
are decorated with some of the funniest signs and sayings. In trying to
keep this somewhat short, I may leave out some things. Let me start off
with a concise, over-simplified version. I learned that the physics that
drive the balloon up are very 
old. Archimedes, a mathematician wrote about
it several thousand years ago. It was a long time after that before the
first "balloon" in recorded history actually left the ground.
Sometime around the end of the 1700s two French brothers named
Montgolfier
sent a duck, sheep and a chicken on a very short flight. This was brought
to the attention of the King and (you guessed it) very
soon after that a French soldier
became the first person to "fly", as a brand new weapon was
invented. The design of current "baskets" is pretty much the
same as the early version used by the French. Little has changed except
the introduction of propane gas. The balloon is made up of very simple
parts. The basket is usually wicker and capable of carrying a half dozen
or so normal weight people, and one or two propane tanks aloft. Attached
to the side of the basket, and suspended over the top, is a bracket which holds
one or two burners. Also attached to the bracket are 
the panels (gores)
with sewn-in webbing, which support the balloon. The top of the balloon
has a bungee-type open flap (parachute valve) with a cord running back to
the basket. Slowly the balloon crews began to unfold the giant
balloons. They are made of paper thin fire resistant material. Once
everything is attached, and the basket it laying on its side, it's time to
inflate. Firing up the burners at this point would do no good as the
balloon is flat on the ground and the heat would go up and not into the
balloon. This is where the last piece of equipment is used, a large
gas operated fan. It is placed on the ground at the opening of the balloon
and air is blown into it. Even though the air is not heated, the volume is
great enough to cause the balloon to fill, and begin to rise. This is
continued until the balloon is
sufficiently up righted
to allow a short blast of heat from the burners. After that, the burners
take over and the balloon is filled. One by one, these behemoths righted
themselves and stood tall as the evening slid into night. In addition to
the standard round type, there were shapes of everything imaginable. Each
with its distinctive markings or sayings. As darkness settled in, we stood
under a canopy of balloons and waited as the loud speaker ended a count
down. Three, two, one and all the burners fired at the same time.
Giant red and orange flames shot into the air causing each balloon to flicker as
the roaring of the burners made them sound like so many angry monsters.
This was quite an experience, like nothing I had ever seen before.
*** THE END ***
