Reporter soars to new heights during balloon festival

16 years ago
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer

    PRESQUE ISLE – Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated by hot air balloons. The bright colors. The way they float effortlessly in the sky. There’s something quite magical about them.

ImageStaff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
    This scenic view of the Presque Isle Stream was taken from a hot air balloon over Cassidy Tepper’s shoulder Friday night. Cassidy’s father, Bryan, is a veteran pilot of more than 30 years and participated in the fifth annual Crown of Maine Balloon Fest.

 

    I think my interest started back in 1978 when the Double Eagle II launched from a field on the Spragueville Road in Presque Isle. I was 5 at the time, and we watched the balloon start its historic launch – the first successful trans-Atlantic balloon flight – from the Houlton Road like countless others.
    For the last few years, I’ve been covering the Crown of Maine Balloon Fest for The Star-Herald, so being around the balloons has always been fun. That “fun” got transformed into “excitement” as Friday evening I got to experience the thrill of going up in a hot air balloon.
    Derik Smith, chair of the Balloon Fest committee, introduced me to Bryan Tepper, a veteran pilot of more than 30 years. Bryan readily agreed to take me up. I helped “crew,” which means I helped set up the balloon. Also joining in the efforts were Bryan’s wife, Alison; daughter, Emily; and son, Cassidy. Both Cassidy and Emily are working on acquiring their ballooning licenses.
    There’s quite a bit that goes into setting up a balloon. You start by unrolling the envelope, which is the colored nylon part of the balloon.
    “I’ve got a smaller balloon. My envelope weighs about 230 pounds. The gondola is wicker, so it isn’t real heavy, but I’ve got two 20-gallon propane tanks in there, plus some other things. It takes a few people to move things around,” said Bryan, noting that the upright structures in his gondola are pre-assembled which saves time. Other pilots have to attach the upright structures, while some use cables.
    “Then you put the burners in and attach the envelope. You have to stretch the envelope out on the ground. It’s about 60 feet high or eight stories. Then you have to fill it with cold air … it’s called a cold air inflation. We have a large fan and pump the envelope with cold air,” he said.
    As the balloon was inflating, Bryan and Emily went inside the envelope to make sure everything was OK.
    “I make sure that my line for my side vent is untangled,” said Bryan. “When you’re finally deflating, the very top of the balloon either has a spring top or a Velcro top and you pull a rope down inside. When you pull that rope, the top comes in and the hot air escapes, so I check to make sure that looks good, all the lines are clear, and there’s no wear or tear. Everything has to look air worthy.”
    After checking the gondola, the burner system, and all the instruments, Bryan blasted the burners.
    “The burners I’ve got are about 32 million BTUs, which is a tremendous amount of heat,” he said. “Your normal gas grill at home is going to have maybe 150,000 to 175,000 BTUs. Some of the big, fancy grills might have 300,000 or 400,000 BTUs. With a hot air balloon, we’re talking 32 million BTUs of heat.”
    As graceful as the balloon is in the air, there’s no graceful way of climbing in. I had to swing one leg up and over the edge of the gondola … sort of like mounting a horse. Once inside, we were ready to depart. We launched from the Northern Maine Fairgrounds around 6 p.m. Cassidy, or Cass for short, joined Bryan and me on our flight. As we lifted off the ground, there’s a moment when you realize you’re in the air, but the lift-off is so peaceful, you don’t realize how high up you are until you look down. Unlike takeoff in a plane that’s loud and fast, the ascension in a balloon is more slow and gradual.
    “It’s so calm … there’s no sensation of movement,” Bryan said. “Once you’re in the balloon and moving, you’re moving with the air mass. You don’t have any wind in your face, and it’s really, really incredible.”
    Bryan explained that a balloon gets its lift from the difference in the amount of hot air inside the balloon giving it rise to the outside air.
    Different times during our flight, Cass would pull a rope which would open the side vent letting the air “spill out.”
    “We used the vent a lot when we were trying to set down or playing over the water. Letting the air out causes the balloon to come down; blasting the burners causes the balloon to lift,” said Bryan. “We blast every 10 or 15 seconds because as the air cools, the balloon goes down.”
    During our flight, we did what pilots call a “splash ‘n dash.” We descended just enough so the bottom of the basket touched the Aroostook River and then lifted up again. It was quite a sight to see the water coming at you like that.
    “I really like the water,” said Bryan, who has his private pilot’s license.
    Another exciting moment came when we floated over – and descended somewhat in – the rock quarry behind Lane Construction.
    “Being able to fly off the lip there into the quarry was something. There’s very few places you can actually experience that. You know you’re flying level, you can see the ground beneath you, and there’s no sensation of movement,” Bryan said, “but all of a sudden, you see the land fall away from you as you fly over the quarry, and your stomach tells you, ‘There’s something not right here.’ It really plays with your senses.”
    To me, it felt like we were falling off the edge of a cliff. Then we drifted close to the inside mouth of the quarry before ascending again. Seeing a rock wall coming at you is another unique experience.
    I was surprised at how quiet it is in the air. As another balloon passed by, I could hear the pilot talking to Bryan clear as a bell. I could also hear the people below saying, “Hello.” It’s also neat to be able to look down on the treetops.
    We were going to try to land a little sooner than we actually did but an air flow over the river had other plans for us.
    “There was a flow in the river there,” Bryan said. “The air kind of follows the river. It seems here it goes upstream and follows up. We were making an approach into a site, and I thought we would be far enough out of that flow, but I came down over the river and that flow caught us, so we missed the first field we wanted to go into.
    “We came up and tried another one, so I gained a little altitude to pop back a little bit farther east, and we just missed it by maybe 20 or 30 yards,” he said. “I bumped into a pine tree with the hope of getting it to knock us out of the flow, but it actually sucked us into the river a little bit more.”
    Our third attempt at landing went fine, as we landed in a field near a home on the Parkhurst Siding Road.
    With knees bent and holding onto the uprights, the landing was very smooth. The basket kind of hopped once ever so slightly and then we came to a stop.
    Alison drove the balloon chase vehicle. My wife, Casey, followed behind in her vehicle stopping to take pictures along the way. Balloonists unfamiliar with the area like to have someone with them who knows the side roads and back roads. Periodically Alison and Casey would pull over and Casey would tell her how best to get to where they thought we would be landing. The Teppers were very pleased with Casey’s navigational skills.
    Our balloon, called “Renaissance,” traveled the farthest that night. We traveled northeast about seven miles (as the crow flies) and went about six or seven miles per hour. About 24 gallons of propane were used during the flight, and we were 600 feet above ground level. Bryan estimated we were in the air for about an hour and 15 minutes. Though we didn’t see any wildlife from the balloon, we did see six or seven ducks floating in the river. When Bryan pulled the blast valve, the ducks fanned out and swam faster than I’ve ever seen before.
    Bryan’s balloon used to be his father’s.
    “The word, ‘Renaissance,’ comes from the French. It’s kind of a rebirth and returning to the origins of a whole movement. Flying a hot air balloon where you’ve got nothing but hot air and you’re letting the wind direct you, it’s a very pure, original flight, so it seemed like a good name,” he said.
    “As a family, we designed the balloon. We came up with the colors … blue, white and yellow, as well as the stars and eagles that are on it,” said Bryan. “I started flying that, and actually bought a balloon myself. It was called ‘Centennial’ that I flew for four years. Eventually my Dad wasn’t doing as much ballooning, so he just gave me his which was nice.”
    The gondola measures about four feet by five feet. As we were in the air, there were times Bryan and I needed to switch positions.
    “I like to constantly keep a good line of sight so I can see what’s going on,” he said. “Especially flying around this many balloons, you’ve got to watch out for them. Plus you’re watching for power lines and other aircraft. Safety is your number-one concern, so you always have to be looking around.”
    To walk in such tight quarters with very little to hold onto while floating 600 feet above ground was a little nerve-wracking, but not bad. Cass and Bryan would ask me every so often, “Are you doing OK? Everything good?” Needless to say, everything was great. I had all the confidence in the world in Bryan’s flying ability.
    Bryan has had his license for 32 years.
    “I soloed when I was 16,” he said, “and got my license shortly thereafter. I’ve been ballooning since I was about 10 years old. I enjoy ballooning because of the perspective it gives you. I enjoy flying and the people that you meet. The last couple of days have allowed me to meet some very interesting people. I like meeting different types of people and everybody has a story.”
    Originally from Colorado, Bryan and his family presently live in Ottawa. Before that, they called Los Angeles home.
    This was their first appearance in the Crown of Maine Balloon Fest.
    “I’ve heard balloonists talk about how pretty it is and it’s just extraordinary here,” Bryan said. “There’s a lot more fields here, and it’s more remote. There’s a lot of water here, too. The festivals are great because that’s where you see the other balloonists and can meet the people. We’ll do three or four this year. It’s fun to balloon in a different area.”
    I’d like to thank the Tepper family for showing me my hometown from an entirely different perspective, as well as Derik and Milt Smith for organizing the festival. Hopefully I’ll get to fly again, but if this was my once in a lifetime opportunity, I’ll cherish it always.