I Was Involved in a Hot-Air Balloon Crash, and All I Got Was a Hero to Worship (1293 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.66 on 30 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Rad (View user info) at 2005-08-25 10:43:09 EDT
http://www.eballoon.org/index.html
I got my 'lighter than air' student pilot's license back in 1993, when I was 14 years old. My stepfather, Rick, had introduced me to the Hot-Air Balloon movement the previous year, and I was in love with it.
Flying in a hot-air balloon is an almost indescribable experience; it hovers somewhere between the meta-physical/spiritual and the adrenaline rush of leaving the ground and sailing where the wind blows you under no power other than that of air heated to slightly over the boiling point of water. Oh, how I miss the days where I floated three thousand feet above Mother Earth in a silent sky, broken only by the intermittent roar of the propane burners.
Rick worked for a man by the name of Joe Kittinger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger at the Main Street Station casino in Las Vegas in about 1991 or 1992. From Joe, he had purchased the Rosie O'Grady balloon with two other partners. This was the balloon I cut my teeth on, learning everything I needed to know to be a good ground crew chief and pilot.
On 14 September, 1996, Rick and I awoke at approximately 0430 hours, and began to plan and file our flight plan for the day with McCarran International Airport. Windspeed was light and variable out of the north-northeast. We packed everything up and were ready to launch from the parking lot of some hardware store in the sparsely populated northwest area of Las Vegas.
Sunrise has a definite effect on your flight for the day. The Earth heating up, even slightly, may or may not change your weather patterns in your area, and they may or may not be for the better. This day, as we inflated Rosie, windspeed remained light and variable. Perfect ballooning conditions.
Rick was flying some people from Omaha, Nebraska for their first time in a hot-air balloon. I was chase crew chief for the flight (since you go where the winds take you, you gotta chase that bad boy down) and my sister was my assistant.
The flight was going according to plan, when about 40 minutes in, the winds started to pick up and change direction. Rick was beginning to head toward restricted airspace near the airport, and from what I could tell from the ground, the balloon seemed to be moving at approximately 20-25 miles per hour. This was extremely fast for a balloon; considering that a normal landing consisted of pretty much crashing your basket into an empty space; this speed would drag the balloon for an unknown length before the envelope finally collapsing. Possibilities for injury at this speed were moderate if we had a nice open field or stretch of desert to land in, unfortunately as we headed over the city, we had no place to land, and fuel was running out.
The two-way radio that allowed Rick and myself has broken the previous season, and we had not been able to repair it as of yet. If we had communications that Saturday morning, perhaps we could have avoided what happened next.
I was now chasing Rosie over dirt lots in a residential area on the west side of Las Vegas. As I crossed Sahara Avenue, illegally, against traffic, in my '85 Toyota 4x4, I glanced at my speedometer: 35 miles per hour. I glanced behind be, as I had passed Rick and his terrified passengers, and saw that he was attempting to land in the lot I was in, and he was gaining on me. Rosie cleared a set of high tension power lines and dropped down at a 70º angle; Rick must have just pulled the shit out of the crown line (lets the air out) and hit the dirt, hard. The escaping air deformed the envelope and turned it into a concave ellipse; it was now a fucking sail. Rosie shot back up and Rick attempted to clear the next set of power lines. They were closing in.
A hot air balloon is a bomb. You are sitting on about 40 gallons of liquid propane, and the last thing you want is a line, or God forbid, a tank rupture. The first rule in an emergency landing is shut your lines. Rick had managed to kill the fuel just as the balloon hit the power lines on the cables that attach the envelope to the basket. I was in the truck directly under Rosie when I saw the iridescent ball of energy jump out of the wicker basket, dissipating into the atmosphere. One bang, and then another. (Bang is just such a bad word for it, I have no words to explain what I heard: the crack of what may have been the life going out of my father, oh the horror).
I pulled the truck into the driveway of the house the balloon was now entangled over, and broke down the front door to call for emergency services. An older man limped from the bedroom and I explained what had happened outside. I had a fleeting thought that I knew him from somewhere.
I ran back outside, and I watched Rick assist his two passengers out of the hanging basket onto the soft grass five feet below. Rick then tumbled out, and lay on the sweet grass for awhile. Nobody was hurt, thank God, although those fuckers tried to sue us for everything we had. Fucking bullshit artists, those guys, claiming "emotional trauma" and all.
The end of Rosie O'Grady had knocked out power to the entire area of town. I have a clear memory of Marco! coming over to yell at us for knocking the power out at his salon. You see, Marco! was the premier gay hair stylist in Las Vegas, helping ugly rich broads get uglier since 1987, and he was livid.
My mother was on the scene by that point, and being the driven half mad with the apparent mortality of her husband and half in shock with relief from not losing him, Marco! was lucky that all he got from her was the most obscene verbal lashing my dear sweet mother has lain on anyone. I hadn't realized she knew such words as "buttfucking", "assmuncher", "motherfucking", "queerfuck", "cocksucking", or "rootpuncher". My jaw dropped. Faced with such a furious ball of blank femininity, Marco! tucked tail and fled. We never heard from him again.
Eventually the power was tuned back on, the cleanup was completed. Rick kicked ass that day, saving the life of two men he did not know but was responsible for; I was a witness to a man who faced death head on and laughed in its stinking maw.
I watched my hero stand up from the grass, dust his chambray shirt and blue jeans off, light a Marlboro, and slowly cross over to where the ambulance was waiting, his boot heels clicking on the pavement. Rick tossed me a section of fried cable that separated from the balloon when it hit the power line.
I stood in awe of that man.
User Reviews
Submitted by ILL34GL3 (user info) at 2008-03-16 16:03:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
poop
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-01-04 16:04:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Erm, excuse me Yozz? What did i ever do to you??
Submitted by Yozz (user info) at 2008-01-04 15:57:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Douchebag
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v
Submitted by orphelia (user info) at 2008-01-04 14:52:54 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
No Comment
Submitted by Leonore (user info) at 2008-01-04 10:28:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This post deserves WAY more love.
liek way moar
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2005-08-26 07:08:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
<insert witty/pretentious Bertyism here>
Submitted by d_prime (user info) at 2005-08-26 06:56:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's impossible to not +2 a title that starts with 'I Was Involved in a Hot-Air Balloon Crash,' for any reason.
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-08-26 06:54:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
thank you.
I appreciate it.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-08-26 06:50:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read this Rad.
I just read it again, just for you.
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-08-26 01:50:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
*ahem*
Submitted by Totally_useless (user info) at 2005-08-25 16:39:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 because no posts on the front page are NSFW!
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-08-25 16:27:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by sideshow (user info) at 2005-08-25 15:51:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice
Submitted by Mike00295 (user info) at 2005-08-25 14:30:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
It's almost Friday.
Submitted by AwesomeJohnson (user info) at 2005-08-25 14:28:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
gravity: Eat me!
Submitted by Average_Dan (user info) at 2005-08-25 14:17:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 all I got post!
Submitted by mockidol (user info) at 2005-08-25 14:00:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by southernmiss (user info) at 2005-08-25 13:54:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I could have spelled balloon right but I was huffing on one.
Submitted by COMountain (user info) at 2005-08-25 13:45:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Marco!
polo!
Submitted by southernmiss (user info) at 2005-08-25 13:31:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
hot air ballons rock
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-08-25 13:29:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
about the lawsuit thing
A couple of years ago, my karate instructor did a self defense seminar. I wasn't there so I didn't see it happen, but apparently some woman fell down. Whatever you know, this ain't a sewing bee, skate it off. After the seminar, she went skiing, then when she got back she sued the karate school because her dumb unathletic ass fell down. She claimed to have hurt her knee but somehow she managed to ski for a week. She lost, shouldn't have signed the waiver. What a fucktard.
Submitted by loki (user info) at 2005-08-25 13:24:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I WAS planning to go on a hot air balloon ride over Napa Valley.
Submitted by MANICMOTHER (user info) at 2005-08-25 13:12:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fuck yeah, man. Now that's a story.
Submitted by Yes (user info) at 2005-08-25 11:35:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
good shit. always like to read about home.
Submitted by MichaelJackson (user info) at 2005-08-25 11:29:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 Inflatable
Submitted by Sassmasterr (user info) at 2005-08-25 11:15:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fly?
YES!
Land?
NO!
Submitted by Barnymeinhoff (user info) at 2005-08-25 11:09:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by w_t_a_y_s_t_r_m (user info) at 2005-08-25 11:02:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2005-08-25 10:54:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Great post Rad. I can just picture you at 14, laughing and throwing things at the Vegas tourists from up on high...
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-08-25 10:48:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I've never been in a hot air baloon- it looks really cool.
Great post.