Captain’s Log: Entry 003

Having flown the four flights and 5.1 hours with Bill in his Raven with a round Velcro top (like a spring top, only with Velcro closure instead of springs) we came back to Groveland and life at the Perry-Warsaw Airport. Watson Hartway, Bill Millhollen, and I had sent a check to a guy in Texas the summer before. He had sent us his slightly used Piccard Stretch 6. It was a 77,000 cu ft balloon with a 4 million BTU burner. It had a triangle top (the top section of three gores, ending at the crown). Held in place with 2” velcro and a capewell to avoid accidental opening. Vent was a flap at the equator…not very effective, but I doubt I knew the difference at the time. It had three 10-gallon Worthington tanks with one hose feeding the burner, so that hose had to be switched from tank to tank…during flight. The pilot light was off the liquid line, and notoriously unreliable, so you carried lots of strikers, and got good with them. The basket was suspended by cables from the burner. Required equipment included helmets worn by all occupants. Two reasons:  a fast descent to landing would mean the entire burner would join you in the basket. And if there was any drag, the basket might go upside down…called a doghouse landing. I had a near miss with that once, later on.

I had seen the balloon inflated from a distance, as Watson had had a few instructional flights with a guy from Dansville. That guy had some aviation background, owned an airplane, but had just received his balloon rating. Whenever Watson wanted to organize a flight, he had to have a crew of 5. And after a flight or two, they decided the wind needed to be something other than out of the northwest. The reason: “All those big power lines the other side of Perry.” Watching from a distance, I had the feeling that I was glad to have flown with Bill.

Our family vehicle at the time was the Volvo we had bought in California as I was leaving the Navy. Ironically, it was a yellow car we bought from a salesman named Russ Lemon, and it needed a tune-up every 6 months. One of my airplane students was Bob Waring who ran a chevy dealership in Geneseo, where Dunkin and Mavis are now. I bought the most stripped-down pickup he had…with a stick shift on the steering column. My wife and other chase drivers would take issue with that for the life of that vehicle. Imagine your mom chasing with a stick shift, and kids in the truck?  But she got good at it!

I don’t know the origin of the fan we used with the Piccard. I think it was a 5 or 6 hp Tecumseh with a 4-bladed fan off a truck engine.  Starter was a separate rope you wound around the thing and pulled. If it wouldn’t start…the good news was there was no cage around the fan, so you could prop it by hand, like an airplane.

By July 15 of ’76, everything was in place. My Mom could chase. We set up on the grass at the Perry-Warsaw airport. It was calm, and I did some tethering. I remember thinking about it a little bit, decided to go for it, and untied the tether. Wind was still light, out of the SW. I angled across 20A, toward the Smith Rd. I did a touch and go, then, at a low altitude, I was almost paralleling the Smith road, just west of the road. I think the field was mowed hay, and at the end of the field was a driveway.  Approaching the driveway, I ripped out from 5 or 10 feet, and ended up with the basket on the driveway, with Mom pulling in on the same driveway.

The thing I remember most about that flight as the excitement and feeling of accomplishment of hitting that driveway.  I had had no idea that a spot landing was possible. But there it was!

You know, when you try something new, how the first attempt turns out has a tremendous effect on whether you do it again. I suspect that the macho feeling from that first windy landing with Bill, then my wife’s excitement seeing us inflate Bill’s balloon, and the delightful feeling of accomplishment and discovery on this first solo landing may be the things that God used to seal the deal on our family career for the next five decades.