It was a sunny, Sunday afternoon in Chicagoland
- the perfect type of day for a family drive. Little did Jim Ahern know
that this afternoon's drive would change his life forever. The year was
1973...by Glen Moyer
It was a sunny, Sunday afternoon in Chicagoland
- the perfect type of day for a family drive. Little did Jim Ahern know
that this afternoon's drive would change his life forever. The year was
1973...
"I had been out for a drive with the family one afternoon - didn't have a hobby at the time - and saw my first balloon," says Ahern. "I decided then and there ballooning was the sport for me."
Ahern, working as an airport manager at the time, proceeded to chase down the balloon and its pilots and before the day was done he had hammered out an agreement to trade flying lessons for some of his business expertise. The two pilots, Jerry Kinkaid and Wayne Shaw, were just beginning to establish a ballooning business called Eagle's Nest, predecessor to the better known Windy City Balloonport. "So my first flight was my first lesson. Everyone else it seems does it as a passenger but I didn't have that luxury."
It would take just over a year for Ahern to earn his pilot certificate. "It seems the cash customers always got preference over the barter customers, so we always got shoved behind the door when it came time to hand out that precious flight time."
His perseverance paid off however and in 1974 Ahern earned a private pilot certificate and in 1975 purchased his first balloon, the Jolly Roger, black with a white skull and crossbones. Within another year he had earned a commercial certificate and yet, by 1978 he was ready to abandon the sport he loved so much.
"My job was taking up way too much of my time and even though I was a company man, I wasn't necessarily a happy company man." Ahern called a long-time friend, Paul Woessner, and offered to sell him the Jolly Roger. Woessner and Ahern had known each other in Chicago, prior to their entry into ballooning. In 1978, Woessner was working for Sid Cutter at World Balloon in Albuquerque - then the "center of the universe for commercial ballooning" as Ahern describes it.
"I called Woessner and said `Paul, I'm going to sell you my balloon and I'll even deliver it to you. Do you want it Wednesday or Thursday?'" The two struck a deal on the balloon and over lunch in Albuquerque, Ahern shared with Woessner his frustrations over his workaday lifestyle. By the end of lunch, Ahern had become the newest employee of World Balloons.
Ahern spent eight years at World Balloons as Director of Flight Operations, training pilots and flying a variety of commercial balloons. One of the World Balloon accounts for which Ahern served as pilot was Pacific Southwest Airlines.
"The PSA balloon had been an inside account for some time when they came to us (World Balloons) and said they wanted to take the balloon program into their own operation. The offered me a wonderful job and paid me much more than I was worth, but I didn't want to leave Sid. He had been my brother, father, best friend and had done so much for me that I felt I owed him.
But Sid knew this was a career opportunity for me, so he told me to take the job but that if I didn't like it I could always come back. He virtually kicked me out of the nest, thank goodness!"
Ahern spent the next four years, until 1989 running one of the most highly visible balloon programs on the west coast. A leveraged buyout of PSA by US Air brought an end to that balloon program and the next three years were spent flying passengers in Aspen, Colorado with Fred Gorrell's Unicorn Balloons. Eventually Ahern returned to Albuquerque, remarried (he had divorced shortly after his first move to Albuquerque in 1978), spent three years flying with Denny Floden and Tony the Tiger before taking on his present position with Norwest Banks, as primary pilot on Miss Penny one of two flying piggy bank special shapes.
Having been involved in ballooning for most of its modern era, Ahern says he has seen the sport mature tremendously through the years and now finds it developing into what he calls "the age of specialization."
"Today there are clearly defined types of professional balloon pilots," says Ahern. "There are the competitive pilots - guys who go to the target every time and that's all they care about. But that pilot is probably not a good ride pilot because he's not used to handling a 210 or a 240 and he's not used to having to play tour guide to a bunch of passengers.
"Then there are ride pilots, and they're very good pilots, but they usually fly in the same place over the same route, more or less, day after day after day. They may have a million hours but they've always been from point A to point B over the same terrain, in the same weather and the same environment.
"Then there are the corporate pilots, the road warriors, who are always flying in different situations - he's never been here before, he doesn't know where the landing sites are, he probably can't even find propane after 5 o' clock but very little surprises him.
"It's been my experience that every pilot eventually finds his own niche, and I know pilots in all three of these disciplines, and all are excellent at their job - but I would not want to see them cross over into another genre because it would not fit them."
That same 25 years of experience has left Ahern secure in the knowledge he has little or nothing to prove to anyone and happy that he has the respect of his peers. "I tell my friends it has taken me 50 years to get my life to a point where I work doing what I want to, when I want to, and more or less at my convenience. I am doing right now what other people have to retire to get to do. I don't have any aspirations toward world records or national championships - though I do have a brand new 65 in the garage that has never been flown!
"Ballooning has taken me a lot of places. I've met a lot of people and had a lot of fun. My office is only 3 feet wide by 4 1/2 feet long but boy does it have a great view!"
Dates:
1973 - first flight/lesson
1974 - earned private certificate
1975 - bought first balloon
1975 - flew in first Fiesta and has not missed one since
1976 - earned commercial certificate
1978-85 - Dir. of Flight Operations, World Balloon Corp.
1985-89 - Dir. of PSA balloon program
1989-92 - pilot for Unicorn Balloons, Aspen, CO
1989-present - Balloonmeister/Great Reno Balloon Race
1994-97 - pilot for Tony the Tiger program
1997-present - pilot for Norwest Banks
Ahern on selling his Jolly Roger:
"It was all about being in the right place at the right time. I pointed out to Paul (Woessner) that he was about to embark on this race from Bimini to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and that a black balloon on a sunny day is worth about 20 percent in fuel weight because of solar heating. Besides, what better than a pirate balloon to fly a race that was 90 miles over water!"
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