Hot-Air Balloons Carry Friendships Aloft

When Ray and Carol Bair wanted to try hot-air ballooning, they not only offered a helping hand to pilots flying in the world’s largest balloon fiesta, they opened their home to them.

Their first house guest lent Bair his balloon for his first solo flight more than 25 years ago. They’ve kept in touch ever since.

This year the Bairs, along with hundreds of other Albuquerque residents, will open their doors to 1,000 balloonists, out-of-town crews and nearly 1 million spectators expected to flock to the city for the 29th Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, which begins this weekend and lasts until Oct. 15.

The world’s largest ballooning event is held in the Albuquerque “box,” a wind pattern created by the Sandia Mountains and the Rio Grande Valley that allows balloonists to backtrack during their flight and conveniently land close to the launch site.

The Bairs got their start in ballooning when they signed up to volunteer on the crew of one of the pilots, J.B. Hickey of Tampa, Fla. They were responsible for helping him set up the balloon and for following in a car during its flight to help bring it back down at the landing.

Hickey answered their offer with a request to leave his ballooning gear at their house during the fiesta.

“It was awkward at first,” Bair, 59, said. “He wasn’t sure that he was turning over his equipment to someone reputable, and we weren’t quite sure what to do with all his equipment.”

Things have changed. The Bairs now enjoy turning their home into a meeting and sleeping place for the balloonists.

“Our house is an overbooked hostel during that week, and we look forward to it every year,” Bair said.

With balloonists coming from as far away as Kenya, Japan and Australia, Albuquerque families have a chance to learn about other cultures and export their own.

Holly and Larry Wambold started by hosting a group of British balloonists sponsored by British Airways in the early 1990s.

“That’s when all this craziness started, and it’s been nonstop ever since,” Holly Wambold said, describing exhausted balloon pilots and crew members “draped over our chairs” after their early morning takeoffs.

The Wambolds’ British balloonists brought them an English dictionary one year after their American crew met their requests for spanners and torches with blank expressions. Now the family knows what they meant: wrenches and flashlights.

The Wambolds, along with their three children, Rochelle, Wesley and Dylan, have introduced the British to Southwestern cuisine.

“Watching those Brits deal with the jalapenos that first time was a hoot,” Holly Wambold said, adding that several of the London-area balloonists eventually developed a taste for the hot peppers as well as for saltine crackers, string cheese and other American fare.

Organizers hope that this year’s ascension of hundreds of balloons will make the Guinness Book of Records. There also will be competitions to hit targets, races and balloon glows--when the pilots ignite their burners at dusk to illuminate the colors of their grounded balloons.

Tom McConnell, a retired pathologist and professor at the University of New Mexico’s medical school, said the spirit of ballooning cements the bonds among pilots, crews and spectators.

“I have some very close friends whom I wouldn’t have met without ballooning,” McConnell said.

In Bair’s case, he wouldn’t have discovered the joy of quietly floating high above the city in his multicolored hot-air balloon without Hickey and other balloonists he’s befriended.

“He began giving me lessons when he came to Albuquerque and was the one who got me started.

“The first time I was a solo pilot was in his balloon in the fiesta a couple years later. He had an instrumental role in getting me started as a pilot,” said Bair, now president of the Albuquerque Aerostat Ascension Assn.

Hickey, who is in his 70s and now lives in Basalt, Colo., no longer flies balloons, but he will attend the fiesta this year.

Now it’s Bair, a Federal Aviation Administration designated examiner, who teaches new balloon pilots and carries on the ballooning tradition, helping others as Hickey once taught him.

“It’s come full circle,” he said.

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On the Net:

Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta: https://www.balloonfiesta.com