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It’s a little bit of "The Wizard of Oz" and a lot of romance – the sight of a hot-air balloon floating across the sky, its silent flight punctuated by the occasional hiss of the burners as they ignite to keep the balloon aloft.
Who can resist the magic? You can take a sightseeing ride in an airplane, but what better way to really appreciate the landscape than from inside a gondola floating just a few feet above the trees?
That's why I found myself in Strasburg, PA, late one June afternoon. I was going to spend an hour or so touring the countryside outside Lancaster in a way most tourists never do – via hot air balloon. Our craft was "Rainbow," the pride of the fleet of Balloon Flights Above America. Over 100 feet high when inflated, Rainbow is one of the largest hot air balloons in the country, larger inside than the Goodyear Blimp.
As the crew spread it out and turned on large fans to inflate it, pilot David Gaither explained what was happening.
"We use the fans to get air inside. That’s called ‘cold inflating.’ We cold inflate to 80% of the balloon’s capacity. Then we start heating it up. That’s what makes it raise."
When the Rainbow was upright, we clambered on board the gondola. The balloon can lift and carry up to 14 passengers, but most trips have fewer riders. Tonight, Rainbow would carry nine passengers, including a pair of German tourists, and a teenager whose ride was a birthday gift. We had plenty of room to move around and point things out to the others without feeling crowded.
While we watched the balloon inflate, some of the soon-to-be-aviators wondered how it would feel to stand a few hundred feet in midair in a wicker basket that didn’t rise much above our waists. What if you are afraid of heights?
Not to worry. Pilot Gaither ran the burners for several minutes until the air in the balloon heated, and Rainbow started to lift. It rose a few inches, then tapped gently back to earth. Then she rose again, majestically, as if promising everyone that this would be a peaceful journey.
Most flights are in the early morning or twilight, as this one was. Those are the times that are best for ballooning. The air must be almost calm. Otherwise, the balloon would drag along the ground while inflating or landing.
I’d tried several times to schedule a ride, only to find that the almost unnoticed afternoon breezes that barely stir the muggy, hot, Mid-Atlantic summertime haze are the ballooning equivalent to gale-force winds.
Tonight, though, the conditions were perfect. What little wind we found pushed us at a pace of a fast job as we rose above the Lancaster landscape. The Strasburg Railroad was finishing its last run of the day as we passed overhead. The steam engine and passenger cars looked like something from a Christmas garden.
We continued rising until we were about 500 feet above the ground. "I could go higher, but there’s no point," Gaither said. "It’s a little hazy, and we wouldn’t see as much."
That was fine with us. From this height, it was easy to imagine that we really were floating over the Land of Oz. Everything was real, but in miniature. We passed judgement on the landscaping of people’s backyards, found a few estates we decided we’d buy if we ever won the PowerBall, and wondered at how nice it was to be far away from suburbia and cities. We didn’t see the Emerald City in the distance, just the rolling Pennsylvania hills stretching into the horizon.
The romance of ballooning infects everyone. Every person we saw on the ground stopped and waved. We floated above the woods where Gaither keeps his summer home and called greetings to his neighbors. A hawk soared in front of us, its evening hunt interrupted by our intrusion. Each time Dave lit off the burners, dogs in three counties began barking. We decided that was the way the chase crew could find us. Why bother with hand-held walkie-talkies when they could track us by the barking dogs.
Aside from the burners, it was silent. Lancaster County is Amish country. We passed over neatly tended farms and watched as horse-drawn plows tilled perfectly straight furrows. Cows looked up curiously and mooed as we drifted by.
"I try to stay above the farms, or at least not to turn on the burners, since that can spook the horses," Gaither said. "I was a farmer for many years, so I’m real sensitive about that sort of thing."
I’d always heard it was a tradition for pilots to give landowners a bottle of Champaign when they landed on their property. Was that true?
"Depends on where you are," Dave said. "I fly in Colorado in the winter, and we do that sometimes. But around here, most of the time, we land on Amish farms. They don’t drink, so we don't offer them that. It would be rude."
While the Pennsylvania landscape in the summer and fall is idyllic, the Rockies in the winter are majestic, according to Gaither. He tells of following snow-covered mountain passes and sometimes hovering over mountaintops. What a rough way to make a living!
Hovering was what we were doing as the last of the daylight slipped away. The evening breeze had died, and we were as motionless as an ornament hanging from a Christmas tree. Below us, the chase van parked at the side of the road and waited to see where we would land. An Amish boy, pushing a scooter and leading a horse, was hailed. He pointed out a nearby farm where he was sure we could land.
Gaither let the air in the canopy cool slightly, which got us moving again, although just barely. True to his background as a farmer, he was sensitive about choosing a landing site. He studied the fields carefully, looking for someplace freshly plowed but not yet planted, and close to the road to make life easier for the chase crew.
We hovered a few feet over a corn field while the crew drove to the farmhouse. The Amish farmer and his family came out and waved us down. Dave tapped the burners, on and off, on and off, so that we drifted past the last few feet of corn, barely brushing the tops of the stalks, and touched down in the field beside it.
This was an ‘upright landing,’ which is what balloonists try for. We touched down, bounced up a foot, then touched down again. Before we could bounce a second time, the ground crew caught the gondola and steadied it until Rainbow was convinced she was done flying for the day. Dave was pleased. On breezier days, he said, the landings can be something like a roller coaster ride.
We were immediately surrounded by Levi – the farmer – and his family. Pretty soon, neighbors began showing up. The boy on the scooter alerted his family, and they arrived in two buggies. Before the balloon was deflated, nearly 50 Amish were clustered around the gondola and canopy, asking questions in English and sharing observations in the German dialect they use at home. It was obviously the biggest thing to happen in the area for a while.
Dave enjoys working with the Amish, since they share his excitement over the balloon. Tonight it was too dark, but when he has time, he tethers the balloon and takes the farmer and neighbors for quick rides as a way of saying thanks.
As twilight quickly turned to nighttime, we appreciated what the biggest balloon in Amish country was like to pack up. What looks so light and delicate in the air is actually several hundred pounds of strong fabric! Deflated, Rainbow stretched halfway across the field. It had to be coiled like a massive snake and slid back into its carry case. It took four of us to load the carry sack onto the trailer. The gondola was as substantial as it looked. Everyone had to pitch in to get it loaded.
No one complained or hurried more than they had to, however. It was too nice an experience to end. Finally, though, the equipment was loaded, and we ran out of excuses to stay and chat with Levi. We headed for Strasburg, on asphalt, not the Yellow Brick Road, back to the decidedly un-romantic world of full-sized highways and towns, as our sojourn to Oz ended.
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