December 2006 Feature Story:
Flight Service and Hot Air Balloons

Story by Rose Marie Kern, Flight Service Specialist

Albuquerque is THE premier location for pilots who fly hot air balloons. There are hundreds of balloon pilots living in the area and you can see balloons as you drive to work pretty much every morning. Albuquerque (ABQ) Flight Service is the only one in the nation with a Standard Balloon Brief tailored to their needs.

With between 800 and 1,000 balloons attending the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta each year, the need for a Flight Service presence was recognized. Our duties are a bit different than you might expect. The FAA began assigning Flight Service specialists many years ago, and Lockheed Martin has continued the tradition. ABQ AFSS sets up several computer systems in the main pilot tent and then calls for volunteers among our workforce to man it. Unlike Oshkosh, ABQ is able to handle the extra duties without assistance from personnel from other facilities through some strategic shift assignments and the use
of overtime.

There are two areas that we work in: hot air balloons and the gas balloon race. Hot air balloon pilots are basically insane. After partying until midnight, they get up at 3 a.m., drive to the field by 5 a.m., and are ready to lift off as soon as possible. Unless a balloon has a transponder, it is not allowed to take off before official sunrise. Those few who have transponders lift off an hour early and are known as the “Dawn Patrol”. What this means is that they start calling ABQ Flight Service at about 4 a.m. Other FSS personnel man the temporary Pilot Weather Briefing tent from 5 a.m. to about 9 a.m.

In the tent, weather briefings are done in groups. The pilots write down their Aircraft ID and each briefer goes over the weather conditions in the local area. A balloon brief contains many of the same elements as a standard pilot weather brief except that balloonists want to know the lifted index and current winds aloft as well as the forecast winds, since a few degrees makes a big difference. The VAD wind readout is actually a radar product which deciphers the direction and speed of particles of dust, pollen, moisture — basically anything that moves in the air. It updates every six minutes and is measured in 1,000-foot increments. A balloonist who is participating in an event like the Key Grab, wherein they have to take off at least a mile from the balloon field then try and float over a pole with the keys to a new car attached, wants to calculate the best possible steering winds.

One of the lesser known duties of FSS at the Balloon Fiesta is related to the America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race. This is a distance race that usually begins on Saturday, and basically goes until all the participants land — usually about four days later. There is a trailer at the Fiesta wherein Fiesta personnel can track the progress of each of the balloons on the computer and where the pilots can call if they need help. Flight Service also has computers and phone lines at the trailer for pilots to update weather at any hour of the night.

Flight Service also serves as a 24 liaison with Air Traffic in this situation. All the gas balloons must have transponders and radios, but they are not “handed off” to the Centers and Approach Controls enroute. ATC is notified the event is about to begin and that there is a possibility that the balloons may transit their airspace, but sometimes the balloons drifting toward a location may need a little coordination. I have called Approach Controls in the middle of the night to give them a heads-up several times.

Weather is also hard to avoid in a balloon, but if they can catch the right windflow they may skate around the edge of the thunderstorms — so having the VAD wind readouts is important because the winds at 6,000 may be just enough to avoid it, wherein the winds at 7,000 could steer them right towards the weather.

Having people knowledgeable about how the whole ATC system works is important at the Balloon Fiesta. I worked the Gas Balloon Center on the midnight shift for five years. It is exciting to track the balloons’ progress and sometimes a little scary. They are not allowed in prohibited or restricted areas any more than any other aircraft, and they are supposed to know where these areas are. When a foreign pilot violated the restricted area at Los Alamos last year the security personnel were hot. He ended up landing before he wanted to.

The Gas Race that took place a month after 9/11 had some especially interesting points. When gas balloons take off they are carrying several hundred pounds of sand in bags. They cannot take on more gas while flying and touching down at any time is considered the end of the flight, so as they travel they will dump the contents of the sand bags to gain altitude. As one balloonist was doing this over Kansas, some farmers decided that they were terrorists dumping poison into their atmosphere and started shooting at them.

One year after 9/11 there were two balloons still flying after four days. One of them was headed northeast about to cross Lake Superior into Canada. As the balloon made it across the lake and into a forested wilderness area, the gas balloon center specialists were busy calling Canadian Search and Rescue. Almost simultaneously, another balloon was headed to Washington, D.C. That balloon was carrying ballooning legend Ben Abruzzo and the former governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson.

When I handed off the position to my replacement the next morning, the governor’s balloon looked like it was going to penetrate the restricted area surrounding the White House. Frantic calls were going out to ATC on the east coast and to the Secret Service. Fortunately, Abruzzo managed to get through without incident and land on an island off the east coast.

The diversity of aircraft that we deal with at Flight Service makes the job more fun. From experimentals to Learjets, from air carriers to Air Force fighters, from balloons to gliders, all of them have their own special needs that we are ready to meet.