Captain’s Log: Entry 004

Through the summer of ’76 and into the fall, I was approaching the required 20 hours in balloons. The closest balloon examiner was Bob Waligunda in Princeton, NJ.

On October 30, 1976, I took the Cessna Cardinal I leased back and rented out at the Airport, Randy Chiverton and I left at zero-dark-thirty and landed at the Princeton airport just about sunrise. Bob had a propane tank on the airport, and was fueling a Raven AX-8 (105,000 cu ft) in preparation for a training flight for his student Joe Zavada. He had agreed that I could fly with them for my flight test.

I had never flown an AX 8 but the setup was mostly like Bill’s Raven. To the best of my memory, the oral exam consisted of Bob asking me what I would be looking for on the preflight during inflation. I mumbled something about looking for tears and I think that satisfied him. Once the balloon was inflated, Joe, Bob and I were ready, and Bob wanted me to make the takeoff. The crew had casually walked away from the basket which surprised me. I was used to crew hanging on to the basket to help with liftoff. So I said to Bob, “We could ask the crew to hold the basket.”  He said, “Do we need to?”  The way he said that made me sort of shrug, and start blasting. As we lifted off, it felt just luxurious. Kind of how I feel now in your Mom’s Tahoe. The extra size, plus he had square shooter burners as opposed to the cans I had been flying, made it feel like that balloon could do anything.

Joe took the burner and flew most of the rest of the flight. I listened to Bob expound on the benefits and advantages of Raven balloons. Raven was the original, the biggest, the best manufacturer of balloons, and of course Bob was their Northeast distributor.

By the end of the flight I guess Bob thought he should see me do something besides the takeoff, so he had me do the landing. I remember clearing some irrigation pipes, and I guess the landing was OK.  At least he had no complaint.

We went back to his office for paperwork. He had offered to mail the certificate but I wanted to leave with the piece of paper. He had somebody in his office sign the Instructor recommendation, and he helped me fill out the application. I think I gave him $150. And Randy and I flew back to Perry-Warsaw. The project I had thought would take two weeks back in February was now complete.

Interesting looking back now…the fact that the check ride was mostly a sales pitch for Ravens meant that there was very little of the feeling of accomplishment that I had felt at other points in training. But still, of course it was an important step. Now I was legal to get rich in ballooning!

Almost 5 decades later…rich in ways I never dreamed of!!