by Don Piccard
We closed last column with a suggestion of some old fashioned ballooning for the Hudson, Wisconsin's State Sesquicentennial Hot Air Affair. Believe it or not, I had some takers: Professor Bob of Atlanta, Danni the Con and Pete the Cunning. I loved it and they had a ball. It was a ball because it was a 19 in a 35 net. That is better than a Blivet (a 35 in a 19 net) as John Wise had at Easton, Pennsylvania when he inadvertently invented the rip panel at several thousand feet of altitude.
First, in our planning briefing, we were calculating the time and someone said "... and then we lay out the netthat's always a mess and takes almost an hour." My pleasant response was, "The net is already on it and spread out evenly. We lowered it from a forty ton crane in the shop. It is all rolled up in the bag with the balloon."
This way, nobody has to step on the fabric to insert the valve, tie off the rip cord with breakable thread, etc. And then we have to roll up the drag rope in a ball. No, it is already coiled, inside out, in a tight cylinder so it will play out smooth and never tangle, not even jerking and tumbling on the way down..
We had to wait for the gas. Praxair "felt uncomfortable without a regulator," so we dawdled our "Down to the red" under a 500 psi regulator in the beautiful calm morning.
After a bunch of horse play with Union and Rebel troops, muskets and charges that would embarrass a Master Card we were ready to float off. Peter, in his first ever net balloon launch positively glowed as I let them off at about a ten foot per hour rate of climb. He took over at shoulder height and dropped at least a spoonful of the dry white silica sand to creep gently up and past the "Scandal of Teapot Dome" into the clear Wisconsin sky. Danni (of the balloon raffle ill repute) stood in the basket in awe at Pete's skill. Professor Bob, the rest of the crew and I emptied the bags of frozen builder's sand used for inflation and then lazily wandered off after the shiny ball bearing in the sky.
Almost needless to say, after four hours of deer and bald eagles, Pete sat the basket down on a smooth, dry, paved road without fences or power lines a half hour before sunset. That enabled a deflation on the ground cloth (left over from the 1934 stratosphere flight of my mother) by taking out the valve. No rip panel reworking needed. What a delightful day. By the way, is anyone interested in owning a complete 19,000 cubic foot balloon (as used by Wallace Berry in the 1943 movie "This Man's Navy" about LTA)? It is a beauty.
Then back home to get a telephone call from Steve Kersten. Don bought his first balloon from me July Fourth 1965. As he was a conservative Iowa Attorney, I was extremely gratified that he would put his trust in a long haired California weirdo, but then, at that time, he didn't have much of a choice. Raven wasn't available and Semco was a long way from the Eagle it has become and promises to be under its new owners. When Don hit the out house at Indianapolis and the pilotless balloon shredded itself in a tree miles away, he was out of ballooning. (By today's standards he would have won the race.) But I rebuilt his Merope by cheating a little on the time sheet to enable him to continue.
Looking back, that was probably the best thing I ever did for the sport. A great man and a wonderful friend of ballooning worldwide. If Indianola doesn't at least name a street for him, I'll...