America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race

by Lesley Pritchard Davies

With a perfect high pressure system just beginning to move out of the Southwest, aeronauts from 'round the world began to converge for the 1997 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Gassers being no different, we, too, rolled into town full of anticipation and great intentions. The drama began to unfold quickly as seventeen teams from five countries registered on Friday afternoon and gathered for the first official briefing. Roll call revealed the presence of quite an impressive group and pilots and co-pilots greeted one another warmly.

This year's event bore a somewhat greater significance than last for, with an F.A.I. sanction, the Third America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race would determine the top three American teams to represent the United States at the prestigious Coupe de Gordon Bennett in 1998. The American team of Pilot David Levin and Co-Pilot Mark Sullivan had been narrowly nicked by the French in the 1997 Gordon Bennett Bas Balloon Race (GBBR) and thusly France will host the competition in 1998. Of course, it would be the goal of each of the teams to perform well enough in the Albuquerque event to qualify and, hopefully, to win next year's GBBR and bring the whole show back to the U.S. in 1999. An awful lot of sweat and blood must flow before those chickens can hatch.

Lou Billones provided weather information at each of the briefings and it looked from the outset that this race would require some degree of finesse in order to come out on top. With heavy moisture from the Gulf of California pumping up over the Southwest it appeared that the strongest flows would carry the balloons toward the northern Plains states. By late Monday, the northern areas depicted on Billones' charts showed high winds and precipitation likely in the Great Lakes region. A prolonged flight seemed unlikely, yet we were prepared to "go the distance" if at all possible,. It just seemed that it might be necessary to get as much mileage as possible as soon as possible in order to get out front before the weather deteriorated. Ha! Who would have imagined how difficult that might be?

As it turned out, the weather held up beautifully for the scheduled launch on Saturday evening, October 4 . The launch order had been assigned randomly at the first briefing and the Davies/Davies team was number 10. Launch order is not always a critical factor, as pilots may pass if they are not ready when called and many circumstances come to bear. In this race, Event Director Steve Shope made it clear that the launches would be "tight" with all balloons off within a one & half hour launch window - roughly one every 5 minutes. Although there was a delay until 7:30 p.m., those devilish desert inversions which we now well know develop at sundown would again be a factor in the later launches.

As our balloon (N#95GB - fondly known as "'95 Gas Bag") was being moved to the platform, the wind direction shifted at least 90 degrees. We waited for Padelt/Vitanza to be moved from what now appeared to be out downwind path. Our inflation had been skillfully handled by our Balloonmeister, Tarp Head and crew, and we were confident that as an experienced fellow gas pilot, Launch Director Jim Schiller would help us become uneventfully airborne.

You can only imagine the escalating rush of adrenaline which comes in the final moments before lift-off. Looking beyond the bright lights and the crowds at the launch field one can see only the deep dark of the moonless night, the looming silhouette of the Sandia Mountains, and the blinking glow of the Albuquerque city lights. Everything happens quickly, yet one must remain clear thinking through it all.

Suddenly, the silence of the night takes over interrupted only by Albuquerque Approach Control on the aircraft radio. Our biggest concerns are to try to keep an eye on what feels like a traffic jam of gas balloons, almost impossible to see except for the intermittent flashes of their aircraft strobes. The winds are light, but variable and shifting steadily toward the mountains. We had hoped to slip out of the valley to the north, near Santa Fe, thereby saving ballast through the night and better able to search out that flow toward the northeast.

No such luck as we are definitely headed toward the Sandias and must decide whether to ballast up and over as it seems inevitable that we are continuing toward them, or to trust patiently that there is enough of a low flow nearer to them that we might be carried south a bit and sneak out east through the pass at I-40. Though it is not uncommon, I have never done this and can only hope that it will be possible. Tom and I are very chagrined, to say the least, as we see distant, earlier launches drifting off to the north. As we continue in a southerly direction, Levin's familiar voice on the radio informs Albuquerque Approach Control that one balloon is down. There seems to have been an emergency landing but as Levin calmly gives the location near Bernalillo, he reports, thankfully, that he can see the occupants moving around on the ground.

We later learn that Pilot John Kugler and Co-Pilot Dan Brown looked up to suddenly see huge powerlines in front of them and without further hesitation, ripped the top out of the balloon. Like a hot air balloon, descent is quick and deflation follows immediately. Thankfully, no one is injured. We are relieved. Co-incidentally, Dan Brown is married to Tom's step-daughter, Sarah Sammons. Dan was the supercrewguy who drove our chase vehicle to the Mexican check point to pick us up after our flight into the Sierra Madres in last year's America's Challenge. Talk about a small world!

We fly on and are happy to leak out of the Albuquerque valley at I-40. Tom notifies Albuquerque Approach that we are departing. We ask to turn off our transponder and radio in order to conserve power and the silence deepens. We head over the mountains and into the darkness. There are few lights beneath us and as the balloon slowly rotates, I know it will become increasingly more difficult to stay oriented as the glow from Albuquerque disappears behind us.

It is necessary to stay fixed on lighted radio towers, the random clusters of small towns in the distance and, of course, the constellations which keep us company. We note the locations of several balloons near us, to the north over I-40 and to the east and above us. One balloon passes overhead, a black shape without lights moving more quickly to the southeast. Many pilots turn off all lights in order to travel in stealth mode and to save batteries, I guess. I feel more comfortable blinking away silently, even if I do disclose my position. Occasionally, we see a lower balloon spot light the terrain with a high-powered beam. Though one can surf the low level nocturnal jet, I prefer to float a little higher, clear of the ominous terrain I know is beneath us. The mere sliver of moon set long ago and we are eventually alone as each balloon disperses into the dismally dark night.

At dawn, glorious dawn, everything seems bearable. We spot at least seven balloons around us in all directions, as far away as perhaps 30 miles north and south, yet clearly global specks which take distinguishing shape and color as morning breaks. From the west, two lower balloons ascend and pass more quickly to the north of us. Others to the south and east continue to move off and we still track about 150 degrees to the southeast. We are very bummed out. We are going very slowly, in the wrong direction, and we recognize exact landmarks which we passed last year enroute to Mexico. Hey, I don't have a problem with going there, but it is not a direction which has any prospect of rewarding us. We need to get north and fast.

No way. We have coffee and breakfast and ponder the situation. We don't have too many options. It is now beginning to look like it might be a race of diligence and duration and we decide not to expend any ballast in order chase the couple of balloons to the north. We talk to our meteorologist, Bob Rice, and he convinces us that the shift will occur later, sometime, eventually, and if patient, the back of the high pressure will come round clockwise and pick us up.

One balloon closer to Roswell descends to land and we identify it as being non-competitor Mark Sullivan carrying New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson on his second gas balloon flight. Winds on the surface seem to be to the north at this time, but we refuse to valve gas for north or put ourselves any nearer the deck, in case the dreaded thermals do develop.

It is an agonizingly long, hot day as temperatures rise over 100 degrees in the basket and we drag on the west side of Roswell more and more south and west toward, it seems, Ruidoso and the "Big No-No" White Sands Missile Base beyond. Don't want to go there.

We learn from our crew that at least two balloons were in southeast Colorado at sunrise (Sunday) - one being the intrepid Mr. David Levin and his Co-Pilot/brother Alan. Our scowls deepen. Weird turbulence hits the balloon in the middle of the afternoon and though we don't see evidence of thermals, we struggle to maintain our altitude, ballasting steadily. Speed picks up and everything indicates a westerly flow. Crap. Big Sierra Blanca and Capitan Mountains ahead and west of us, yet we are relieved to circle just north of them though still back toward Albuquerque. It would appear that we might, just might find ourselves reversing right back into Albuquerque and neither of us likes that prospect.

We fight for every degree of north, setting our sights on each landmark downwind and praying to pass over or northeast of each one. At 8 p.m. on Sunday, we are finally satisfied that our heading will not carry us back to the launch site but, after 24 hours in flight, we are just now intersecting I-40 at Cline's Corners - a mere 70 miles from our launch site! The crew has been waiting all day in Tucumcari and we tell them to come back west. It looks grimly like we may continue toward Santa Fe and the prospect of our second black night in that area is a major concern. We have plenty of ballast, but the terrain there is severe and would certainly present difficulties.

We would later learn that 10 of the remaining 15 teams (not counting Kugler or Sullivan) landed by sundown Sunday night, mainly in the area between Roswell and Santa Rosa, all within 1-200 miles of Albuquerque. Reasons for landing were primarily frustration and lack of sufficient ballast.

The team of Bradley/Bradley reportedly met with mountain rotors at sometime during their flight and had to dump bags and bags of precious ballast in order to avoid crashing.

Tough competitors Wallace and Brielman landed on Sunday evening on a remote and rugged ranch near Roswell and faced many logistical problems on their retrieval. Their chase vehicle blazed a new trail to the landing site and, after suffering a flat tire and broken bearings, recovery was accomplished in the middle of the night.

Of the five balloons who braved Sunday night - Abruzzo, Cuneo, Davies, Levin and Hora - only three would remain airborne through the day on Monday. The young German team of Tomas Hora and his Co-Pilot Astrid Gerhardt made the difficult decision to land at night near Pueblo, Colorado when they felt that the upslope wind near the surface was carrying them toward a thunderstorm.

Peter Cuneo and his Co-Pilot Barbara Fricke proudly flew through the second night and broke the 200-mile barrier before landing Monday morning near Portales. As new gas pilots, they had achieved one goal of flying a second night, exceeded another goal of not finishing at the bottom of the pack, but had failed to achieve a third objective of getting out of New Mexico. Still, they had a good flight, made a good landing and finished in an honorable fifth place.

Through the night Sunday, once we found the NNE heading which carried us over Las Vegas, New Mexico, Tom and I found ourselves reaching speeds of 30 to 40 mph. After a few tense hours in turbulence near Raton, the balloon began to shift more easterly and once the plains of Kansas were beneath us, I settled the balloon down into the nocturnal jet near the surface where we found winds up to 50 mph carrying us into Monday's sunrise.

The surface trough was funneling us directly along and toward the nasty front which was draped across the northern states and yet we were still sailing in clear, dry air. All weather services (Billones, FSS and Rice) indicated that behind the front precipitation, low ceilings and high winds would prevail. FSS issued an Airmet for turbulence below 8000 feet throughout the day, and at the rate we were traveling, it did not appear that flying through Monday night would be a safe option, since projections clearly showed that by sunrise on Tuesday our location would be smack in the foul weather.

By noon, we had made our decision to land at sundown - the decision we knew we could live with. Superheating (the sun warming the gas inside the balloon and increasing our lift) carried the balloon to 11-12000 feet msl and our speed slowed to about 30 mph tracking due north. There were a few areas of cumulus clouds forming ahead of us, but they remained isolated and moved east. Follow-up reports from FSS confirmed the 180-degree reverse in winds on the surface - winds at Ainsworth, Nebraska were from 360 degrees gusting to 18 knots.

Without losing distance by making our descent too soon, we pushed north. Our GPS calculations at 2 p.m. indicated that we could make Rock County, Nebraska by 6 p.m, if things continued. Reports from the Command Center cautioned us about weather ahead but were vague about other balloons. From the outset, we assumed David Levin was ahead of us and we could hardly even speculate where and when he might land. If we assumed Levin went down at sundown, we would never be able to predict just how far we would have to push to surpass him, if we could. No matter what, I always assume that Abruzzo is buzzing around my head like a bad dream. One could not predict what decisions he would make or luck he would find. The sand hills spread out beneath us from horizon to horizon and we lost all radio contact.

In the balloon, we knew we could land anywhere but I must say, the sand hills are far from inviting. We could only hope that by sundown we would reach the somewhat more inhabited, agricultural areas along the South Dakota border. We had plenty of ballast to easily fly on another night and we spent only a little while reconsidering our decision to land.

At 4 p.m. we made our first real maneuver of the flight and we valved the balloon gradually down, observing the subtle shifts in direction and leveling about 3000 agl. Ground speed continued north at 20 mph. With each minute we flew closer to civilization and our chosen target of Bassett, Nebraska. Contact was made with the crew as they raced north toward Valentine. We informed them of our intentions and assured them we would be fine.

Having made preparations to land, stowed all gear and reviewed procedures, we initiated our final approach shortly after 6 p.m. At 1000 feet agl. the winds reversed 180-degrees and began to carry us south about 15 mph. Within ten minutes we were safely on the ground in a fallow pasture about 100 feet from a dirt county road.

The crew arrived shortly after our landing, escorted by a sheriff's deputy they had recruited in the little town of Bassett. The deputy and the cattle rancher would serve as our witnesses on the official Landing Certificate. Our road weary crew consisted of my brother, Stan, and Chris, a friend from Vail. They were tired and frustrated at never having glimpsed the balloon in flight but they immediately broke out the champagne and we toasted a terrific flight as the blazing sunset took over the sky.

As Tom, Stan and Chris packed up the equipment in the dark, I notified Harris "Goody" Goodwin at the Albuquerque Command Center of our landing and learned then that we were the last to report. "Goody" said they were very relieved to learn that we had landed and were okay. I later learned that at the precise moment of our landing, Richard and his Co-Pilot Jacob Traub were also landing, some incredible 270 miles further away in the face of severe weather. After a terminal descent from 12,000 feet Richard and Jake left the basket after making a brief landing in a tree on a golf course near Mankato, Minnesota. Their balloon took off again (unmanned) and ascended without a transponder to around 21,000 feet before it returned to earth near Rhinelander, Wisconsin, some 300 miles beyond. It would take another three days to retrieve it.

David and Alan landed just across the state line, near Jasper, Minnesota at sunset after flying solidly into second place with a distance of 803 miles from Albuquerque. Richard's official first place distance measured an incredible 910 miles, a great achievement considering that he, too, meandered near Roswell on Sunday, before rocketing off. We were satisfied and proud of our third place finish, and though it was extremely hard to watch the sun go down in a clear sky as we dumped our unused ballast, I joked with the crew saying that I'd rather be with them, safely on the ground, wishing I was still up there flying than up there in the balloon wishing to heck that I was down on the ground.

After a descent meal and a night in a local motel, we stopped at the U.S. Post Office in Bassett (to post our balloon mail), grabbed breakfast at the Ranch Café while being studied carefully by local residents and finally headed the van back toward Albuquerque.

Celebrations and congratulations filled the room as everyone gathered for the traditional Survivor's Banquet held on Saturday night. Keynote speaker, Steve Fossett captivated the audience which included pilots, crews, officials, sponsors and all the wonderful folks who had played a part in making the event a success. These memories will never fade.