Sailing the Skies of Summer

Ballooning is lifting spirits and gaily ornamenting the air

As Icarus and Daedalus flew, "the ploughman stopped his work to gaze, and the shepherd leaned on his staff and watched them, astonished at the sight, and thinking they were gods who could thus cleave the air."

--Bulfinch's Mythology

Humanity has always dreamed of flying off into the deep blue yonder. Balloons were the oldest airships, in fact and fantasy: Oz journeyed over the rainbow in a bag of green silk, and Phileas Fogg embarked on his 80-day voyage around the world dangling from a sphere of hot air. Today the sport of ballooning is enjoying a buoyant renaissance. Rotund flying machines with names like The Artful Dodger, Dante and Pollution Solution hover over golf courses and horse pastures, lifting the spirit and ornamenting the air--bright Christmas balls in the summer sky.

With the development in the mid-'60s of the modern hot-air balloon, equipped with a Ripstop nylon envelope and a lightweight propane burner, drifting aloft became a relatively simple--and safe--divertissement. In 1963 there were only six hot-air balloons in the U.S. A decade later the number was 300, and today there are nearly 1,000. In this age of Concordes and space shuttles, some 3,000 balloon pilots are licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration, and perhaps twice as many friends and relatives serve as nonlicensed crew members.

Some 150 aeronauts took their airships to Indianola, Iowa, this month for the twelfth Balloon Federation of America's national hot-air balloon championships. They competed in events testing precision flying, wafting in gaudy splendor over the rolling farm lands. Former B.F.A. President Bruce Comstock, who practices three times a week with friends in Ann Arbor, Mich., captured his third title with his striped balloon, christened John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt.

As balloonists ascend into the skies, the sum also rises. The standard hot-air balloon costs about $7,000, but custom-built models with designer graphics and suede-covered champagne carriers can go as high as $30,000. Insurance premiums, inspection fees and propane costs add another couple of hundred dollars. To keep down expenses, aeronauts often team up to buy an airship or they join a balloon club. Even so, a would-be pilot may have to pay up to $1,500 for lessons before he can be licensed by the FAA.

"Balloonists have an unsurpassed view of the scenery," H.L. Mencken once observed, "but there is always the possibility that it may collide with them." In 1976 six people died, and two have been killed so far this year. Minor mishaps usually result merely in awkward landings--in the midst of neighbors' cocktail parties, or atop trees. A balloonist once alighted on the grounds of the Santa Rita county prison in California and was hastily evacuated by officials.

To learn how it feels to sail the skies, Staff Writer Michiko Kakutani attended a balloon rally at the Mullen farm in Whitehouse Station, N.J. Her report:

Time: 5 a.m. Sky: a pale chiaroscuro. Air currents: gentle (0-10 m.p.h.) and congenial to fine art of ballooning. There is a sense of fervor, an anticipation of adventure, as the balloonists spread their deflated vehicles on the dewy ground. My hosts are Douglas Economy, 16, one of the youngest pilots licensed by the FAA, his father, and their instructor, Bill Lewis. They aim a battery-powered fan into the limp mouth of their balloon, Fat Albert, breathing life into the sagging nylon skin. Then Lewis ignites the propane burner. With a roar, hot air fills the billowing mushroom, which swells with dignity to its magnificent seven-story height.

Dougie and I climb aboard Fat Albert's gondola, Dougie fires the burners again, and our craft ascends into the New Jersey mist. In the distance, other balloons move like baubles on a mobile, rising and dipping in the breeze. There is solitude in the air. Except for the occasional fire of the burners, the rest is silence. The land shrinks to lilliputian dimensions; horses run from this spectacle in the sky, and people on their porches, retrieving their Sunday papers, look up and wave. There is no sensation of movement--our balloon is moving with the wind, in the wind. As one balloonist puts it, "In a plane you're strapped down looking out; in a balloon it's like you're standing on your front porch, watching the world go by."

Dougie can lift us up with the propane burner or let the hot air escape through a vent to ease us down, but our horizontal movement is entirely dependent upon the vagaries of Aeolus. "That is part of ballooning's magic," says Dougie. "You never know what your destination will be. Your fate is in the winds."

Our chase crew--Dougie's father and Lewis--follows by car, keeping in touch by CB radio. We have been aloft in the midsummer air for nearly an hour, using a tank of propane and traveling eight miles, when Dougie spots a convenient grassy knoll. He releases the hot air and drops us gently to the ground. Now it is time for the champagne.

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