Category Flying and Gliding

One item you probably should spend a little bit of money on is sunglasses. Don’t be tempted by the low-quality, high-fashion ones you can buy at the local shopping mall. Manufacturers like Vuarnet and RayBan put a lot of research into making sure that their lenses have no distortion and their tint doesn’t alter the color of objects. They also design their glasses to work comfortably when worn with a headset.

Remember, this is flying we’re talking about. You’ll be facing directly into the sun a good deal of the time. You’ll also be flying above the clouds, where the sunshine reflecting off snow-white cloud tops can be blinding. You’ll have to be able to see clearly, no matter what. This is no time to skimp on quality.

Because you want good sunglasses, you should be ready to pay a fair price. RayBans, which set the standard for cockpit attitude with its sunglasses a few years back, retail for $65 or more. Classic Aviators by Serengeti will run you more than $100, and Serengetis are probably worth even more than that for their durability and incredible ability to tame the sun. Of course, if you’re like me and wear glasses, you’ll have to have the lenses ground to your prescription strength, which adds still more cost.

There are plenty of other things you’ll want to buy, from “My Other Car Is an Airplane” bumper stickers (don’t) to a good flight bag to carry all the tools of the trade (do). You’ve been warned—this game can get expensive.

Winning Your Wings: Instruction

Now it’s time to talk about the most expensive part of your investment—the ground school, the flight instructor, and the airplane. Here, again, there are times to skimp and times to open up your pocketbook.

Ground School

Ground-school training is the time you spend in a classroom or in one-on-one academic instruction with your instructor. Ground-school training is just as important as flight time when it comes to molding a safe, mature pilot. For that reason, this is no time to pinch pennies.

If one-on-one ground school fits your budget, ask around for the very best ground – school instructor, then contact him or her and get together for a chat. Find out if your personalities match, yes, but most important, find out if he or she has the serious, focused approach you want in a ground instructor. You don’t want a ground instructor who will spend his time—which means your money—telling you stories about his adventures in the air or whose lessons veer into irrelevancies.

Don’t be afraid to interview your ground instructor, just as you shouldn’t be shy about interviewing your flight instructor and the operator of the FBO where you rent your training plane. Ask to see his certificates, and ask for the names of previous or current students so you can interview them about the instructor.

This isn’t like learning to drive, where your first teacher was your dad or one of the unlucky teachers who was stuck teaching driver’s education in high school. In your flight training, it’s your own money you’re spending, and the stakes in terms of safety and cost are much higher. Take your time and choose a high-quality instructor.

The costs of one-on-one ground school instruction can add up. Expect to pay $30 per hour or more for as much as 20 hours of instruction.

The least expensive path through ground school is to join a small class of fellow student pilots. This approach has other advantages besides lower cost. For example, students can meet outside class to discuss lessons, something that could help you keep up your stamina and enthusiasm.

Ground- school courses are offered by most FBOs, and some community colleges offer them for the low price of a continuing education course.

During ground school, you’ll learn the basic principles of flight, the aviation environment such as airspace, airport and radio communications, airplane mechanical systems and performance capabilities, weather theory, how to read and interpret weather charts, basic and radio navigation, flight physiology, and how to plan a flight and make sound decisions.

If these topics pique your curiosity and fire up your intellect, “Get thee to an airport! ”

Flight Instructor

Choosing a competent, professional flight instructor is perhaps the most important thing you’ll do as a pilot in training. You’ll never forget your first flight instructor, and you’ll want to remember him or her for all the right reasons. Too often, pilots use flight instructing as a stepping stone to other jobs, and that means their first priority is not how well their students are learning, but how many flight hours they’ve been able to get in a cockpit, where every tick of the clock adds to their resume and brings them closer to an airline job.

Again, spend time with a prospective instructor, maybe over a cheeseburger and fries at the airport coffee shop. What do you want in a flight instructor? You want him to put your training on the top of his priority list and to have an enthusiasm for flying that is contagious, that will rub off in the cockpit.

Here again, don’t squeeze your nickels too hard. The higher price of a very good flight instructor is an investment in your enjoyment of flying for the rest of your life.

For that reason, don’t be afraid to keep looking if you have any reservations about a potential flight instructor. Your training is too important—and too expensive—to settle for second-best.

In most cases, your instructor’s hourly fee, about $25 to $30 per hour, will be included in the total cost of your private pilot training course. If it’s not, make sure you add the instructor costs to the cost of renting your training plane. You’ll realistically need 20 to 30 flight hours of instructor time, and another 20 to 30 hours of flying alone, to get your certificate.

When you take your first steps to becoming a pilot, there will be a few things you’ll definitely need to have and a few things you’ll probably want to have.

In the “must have” category are some things that, collectively, will probably cost a few hundred dollars:

• Logbook. Not only does your logbook record the strict details of your training flight to prove your experience to the FAA, it also serves as a repository for your memories of your flights. In addition to the simple recording of flight hours, I use my logbook to record the names of people I fly with, where we went, what we did and saw, what the weather was like, and an item or two that will remind me of the flight years later.

Student logbooks are relatively inexpensive, certainly less than $20. Larger, more durable, and more comprehensive professional logbooks can get a little pricey, so remember: You’ll have plenty of supplies to buy; you might not want to go top-shelf for the simple things just yet.

• Headphones. Headphones are important, and your instructor will probably insist that you buy a set. The very best can cost hundreds of dollars, and they’re worth it. Headphones allow crew members to speak to each other easily while they hush much of the engine noise. The top-line models feature noise-canceling circuits that are startlingly effective—but be prepared to pay a lot more money for them.

• Charts, books, and flight-planning paraphernalia. Y our instructor will have a lot of suggestions on what you should buy. One thing you’ll certainly need is an electronic flight calculator. These are specially programmed calculators that store many of the formulas of flight planning in a memory chip to make plotting courses and accounting for winds a snap, not to mention the dozens of other calculations required to plan a flight.

Flight calculators come in a variety of price ranges. Ask around for the model that has the best features for what you want to do. ASA and Jeppesen both put out quality models, but try them out in your airport’s pilot’s shop before buying.

Navigation charts, specialized flight clipboards to hold the charts on, specialized navigation protractors, and a handful of other necessities will probably cost under $100, depending on how thrifty you are and how hard you look for a bargain.

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), the division of the Department of Transportation that oversees the nation’s pilots, airways, and airplanes, insists that pilots be in reasonably good health so that we don’t have too many airplanes falling out of the sky with critically ill pilots at the wheel. It’s only fair to you, your passengers, and those on the ground that you are mentally and physically fit to fly.

Frankly, the medical exam for private pilots is not much of a barrier to hurdle. You’ll find that if you’re in decent health, have good eyesight (or just good glasses), and have healthy hearing or a good hearing aid, you won’t have much trouble passing the exam.

You’ll have to find a certified aviation medical examiner to administer your physical, and the cost can vary immensely, depending on your doctor. Check with your health insurer to see if your policy covers the exam. If you have to pay it out-of-pocket, expect to pay $60 or more. Call your local FAA office for a list of qualified medical examiners in your area, or ask a pilot friend which doctor he or she uses.

There are three types of medical exam you can take: first-class, second-class, and third-class. Unless you intend to become a professional pilot, you need only a third – class medical. If you are contemplating a flying career, you should pay the extra money to receive the more stringent first – or second-class medical exam. The second – class exam qualifies you to fly commercially but not for the airlines; the first-class exam qualifies you to fly for the airlines. Getting one of these more comprehensive exams early on in your career will guarantee that, at least for the time being, you meet the more demanding health requirements necessary to become a cockpit pro. If you can’t pass it, it’s best to know now before you invest too much time and money.

By the way, your medical certificate doubles as your student pilot certificate, so take good care of it. You’re required to carry it with you any time you fly, including on your first solo flight.

In This Chapter

V The costs of flying Pursuing your pilot certificate

>- What to look for in your instructors

V So what about the plane?

So you want to become a pilot. You feel like flying is in your blood, getting that pilot certificate is the goal you’ve set for yourself, and you won’t rest easy until you’ve done it. What do you need to do now?

What Does it Cost to Become a Sport Pilot?

Let’s get one thing cleared up right away. You thought golf was an expensive hobby? I’m giving you fair warning: Flying is an expensive passion to quench, and it takes dedication and professionalism to do it safely. Because it requires months or years of study and practice to become a proficient pilot, think twice about starting if you don’t think you’ll have the time and money to see it through.

Here’s a list of the things you’ll need or want on your way to becoming a pilot:

• A medical certificate

Flying tools, books, and equipment

• A program of instruction, including airplane rental, ground instruction, and flight instruction

• The accoutrements of flying, some necessary and some just to make you look good

• Study aids and video programs

• An FAA written test and an FAA flight test

As you can see, there’s quite a bit you’ll have to get on your way to earning your pilot certificate. (And that’s just getting the certificate. The cost of renting or purchasing an airplane is still a distant consideration.) Let’s take a look at each bulleted item in more detail.

Balloonists began setting their sights on conquering vast distances almost from the time the sport was bom. In the 1970s, 10 attempts to cross the Atlantic Ocean by balloon failed before the first success. That success, by Maxie Anderson, Ben Abruzzo, and Larry Newman, was called the Double Eagle II expedition, and it landed in France after taking off from Maine during the summer of 1978.

In the last few years, the race for the ultimate ballooning record, a nonstop around-the-world flight, heated up. These attempts, like others since the 1970s, used a different type of balloon from the recreational hot-air balloon. Because the around-the-world flights would take more than 10 days to complete, the fuel demands of a hot-air balloon with its propane burners was too great to allow it to make it even a fraction of the way.

The solution was a hybrid balloon design that crossed a hot – air balloon with a balloon filled with helium gas. The design, called a Rozier after the first man to fly in a balloon, solved the sticky heat-loss problems of long-duration flights.

How the Hybrid Works

The Rozier balloon uses a bag of explosion-proof helium gas in a large sealed bag that fills the widest part of the balloon (called the “crown”). Below that bag, air can be heated by a propane flame in exactly the same way as a recreational hot-air balloon.

But it isn’t the hot air that does the work. In the case of a Rozier balloon, it is the helium that does the bulk of the lifting, while the heated air is used only to keep the

helium warm and toasty at night, when lower temperatures would normally cause the helium balloon to shrink and lose buoyancy.

To test Charles’s Law, which states that when pressure stays constant, lower temperature will reduce the volume of э gas, stuff a helium party balloon in your kitchen freezer. Although the balloon is sealed, the cold tem­perature causes the vibrating molecules to slow down and cluster closer together, reducing the balloon’s volume. Now take the shrunken balloon out of the fridge and notice how much buoyancy it has lost Once it warms up to room temperature, the balloon will return to its original size and buoyancy, just like a Rozier balloon does in the sunshine.

Remember the lesson Archimedes taught us? In the case of a helium gas balloon, the Archimedes principle means that the larger the helium balloon, the more air it displaces, and that means the more lifting force the helium will create. Well, cold night air causes a helium balloon to shrink, thanks to something scientists call Charles’s Law. In practical terms, Charles’s Law means nighttime temperatures send gas balloons on a beeline for the ground—something that makes a balloon pilot cringe.

In early 1999, at least four groups of balloon enthusiasts prepared separate attacks on the around-the-world record. One of them, the Breitling Orbiter 3, took off from Switzerland on March 1 and headed south into the high-altitude winds near the equator. Nineteen days later, the balloon and its two crew members, Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones, crossed over Mauritania, North Africa, and the same line of longitude they had departed from in Switzerland. It was the first time a balloon had finished a nonstop flight around the globe without refueling. The last great ballooning feat had been conquered!

Plane Talk

In 1982, a California truck driver made news with a gas balloon flight of his own. Larry Walters of North Hollywood filled 45 weather balloons with helium, attached them to an aluminum lawn chair, and took off. Equipped with a pellet pistol, a parachute, a CB radio, and a large bottle of soda, Walters floated to 16,000 feet in the middle of busy air­line routes. An airfine pilot reported the floating lawn chair to air-traffic controllers, who alerted police. When Walters started to get numb from the cold and the thin air, he used the pellet gun to shoot some balloons and begin his descent On landing, his contraption got tangled in power lines and caused a neighborhood-wide electrical blackout The FAA fined Walters $4,000 for operating without the proper paperwork and for not staying in radio contact with air-traffic controllers. Don’t try this at home, kids!

The gyroplane might be the best aircraft you never heard of.

Gyroplanes, or “autogyros” as they are also known, are a strange-looking hybrid of helicopter and airplane, with both a propeller and a rotor. The propeller is usually mounted on the nose, although some new, lighter designs feature the propeller behind the pilot in a “pusher” configuration. The rotor is mounted on top of the gyroplane, just as a helicopter rotor’s is, but it differs from a helicopter’s in a couple of ways. First, the gyroplane’s rotor is not engine-driven. Second, a gyroplane’s rotor is tilted slightly backward (for reasons we’ll discover shortly).

Gyroplanes are remarkable for how little distance they require for takeoff and landing. Some can even take off and land vertically like a helicopter, though that capability requires the use of some extra equipment that in effect creates a collective pitch control like that in a helicopter. Once they’re in flight, gyroplanes can fly at speeds much slower than airplanes, thanks to their free- spinning rotor. Their slow speed means that they don’t need long runways to land like airplanes do. So gyroplane pilots have more takeoff and landing options available to them than an airplane pilot does.

The Free-Spinning Rotor

The secret of the gyroplane’s impressive maneuverability lies in its free-spinning rotor.

Once the propeller begins to move the gyroplane forward, its free-spinning rotor begins to turn. Remember the backward tilt of the rotor that I alluded to? That’s so that it can use the wind caused by the craft’s forward motion. It spins in the wind like a windmill. Also, the fact that the rotor is tree-spinning means it doesn’t create any torque.

The spinning rotor blades, powered only by wind, act just like the rotors of a helicopter when it is in autorotation. Autorotation, remember, is what enables a helicopter to glide rather than fall if the engine fails. The upward – rising air rotates the propeller and reduces the speed of descent. But the gyroplane differs from an autorotating helicopter because the gyroplane has a working engine that continues to propel it forward. As long as a gyroplane has forward speed to turn its rotor, the rotor will continue to create lift.

Of course, because a gyroplane’s rotor blades are in a perpetual state of autorotation, if the engine does fail, the pilot simply points the gyroplane toward the ground to keep up its speed—turning the gyroplane, in effect, into an autorotating helicopter—and looks for a safe place to make an “off-airport” landing.

So, with all this going for it, why did the gyroplane fade from the spotlight? Bad timing. The gyroplane evolved at a moment in history when it couldn’t quite match up against two other developing technologies—the airplane and the helicopter. Gyroplanes couldn’t fly as fast as the airplanes that were being developed in the early 1930s. They also couldn’t fly very slowly, not to mention hover, like the helicopters that were showing early promise. In a stroke of bad luck, gyroplanes found themselves caught in a historical squeeze play.

Far from being a dead technology, gyroplanes are again being manufactured, and with new techniques that promise to make the newest designs far better and safer than those of decades past.

In the Arizona desert near Buckeye, employees of Groen Brothers Aviation are working to perfect a family of Hawk gyroplanes. These distinctive gyroplanes feature a rear-mounted pusher propeller that puts the engine and propeller behind the plane and keeps the forward view unobstructed.

The company has already made a number of successful flight tests with their prototypes, including demonstrating how the gyroplane can be used to spray crops with herbicides and pesticides, a job that is typically done by helicopters and airplanes.

Because gyroplanes are easier to fly than helicopters and because they can take off and land on shorter runways—even vertically in the case of the Groen Brothers model—gyroplanes could find their way into flying from surveillance jobs, such as wildlife census flights, to law enforcement and crop dusting.

Harrier Jump Jet: Airplane or Helicopter?

In addition to being one of the most curious of all military jets, the British Aerospace Harrier’s military type designation, AV-8B, is also a pretty respectable pun for a jet that can “aviate” with more agility than any of its hangar mates.

The Harrier is the only military plane to succeed at fitting a complex system of “vectored thrust” nozzles on a military plane, and make it strong enough and reliable enough to fly in combat if need be.

In fact, the Harrier has seen plenty of combat since it was first rolled out for military duty in 1969. The Royal Air Force flew the jet during the Falklands War in 1982. And during the Gulf War, the United States Marines, whose version of the Harrier is built by McDonnell Douglas under a license from British Aerospace, flew the “jump jet” against Iranian targets.

The secret to the Harrier’s vertical takeoff is the four rotatable exhaust nozzles from its jet engines. From the cockpit, the pilot can rotate the nozzles in virtually any direction, from pointing backward for ordinary forward acceleration, to pointing

downward for vertical acceleration. The nozzles work on the same principle as any jet engine: A reaction force is exerted in the opposite direction to the exhaust nozzle by the heating and expansion of the fuel inside the engine’s combustion chamber.

The pilot-controlled nozzles give the Harrier amazing agility, not only for vertical takeoffs and landings, but also for in-flight “viffing.” Viffing is a word that means “vectoring in forward flight,” the technique of rotating the nozzle during flight to help evade an enemy.

For example, if a Harrier pilot is being pursued by an enemy fighter, the pilot can quickly swivel the nozzles from the rear, where they provide forward acceleration, to the front, where the thrust will quickly slow the plane down. In flight, the Harrier’s rapid deceleration would cause any pursuer to go rocketing past it. With a deft control movement, the Harrier pilot could swivel the nozzles backward again for forward thrust, and suddenly go from being the hunted to being the hunter.

When a Harrier is on display at air shows, it’s always a crowd favorite. The high wing has a distinctive landing gear arrangement that draws the attention of pilots accustomed to the tricycle arrangement—that is, accustomed to two sets of landing gear located about halfway down the fuselage and set on either side of the plane, plus a nose gear.

The Harrier has a distinctive setup of one nose gear and one main fuselage gear, both lined up on the center line of the airplane so that the Harrier looks like it’s riding a bicycle. To keep it from tipping over, a single wheel drops down from beneath each wing. The location of the wing gear gives the Harrier important stability during landings, when it tends to tip from one side to the other pretty noticeably.

The Harrier isn’t only an oddity. It’s also a serious weapon. It can fly at speeds approaching Mach 1, which is over 700 m. p.h. at sea level. It can carry Sidewinder heat – seeking air-to-air missiles, air-to-ground Maverick missiles, and a six-barrel machine cannon, among other things.

The Harrier is fun to watch take off and land, but not if it’s flying in your direction and you’re the enemy!

The term “blimp” brings to mind just one word for most people: Goodyear. The giant gray Goodyear blimp with its “winged foot” logo emblazoned on the side has become perhaps the most recognized corporate symbol in America, and Goodyear has capitalized on the corporate good will that its decades of blimp flying have created.

Goodyear dominated the blimp scene for decades, but now a handful of competing blimp makers are pushing their way into the limelight. One of them is The Lightship Group. The company’s blimps, or lightships, contain a powerful internal light that shines brightly enough to light up advertising logos even at night.

Another company, Global Skyship Industries, equips its blimps with a powerful lighted sign comprising hundreds of individual bulbs, similar to the Goodyear blimps. But Global Skyships can carry more people at a time than the Goodyear blimp, and in greater comfort—meaning it has an on-board restroom.

Goodyear provides its own pilot training, as do most of the blimp manufacturers. That’s because there are no commercial schools open to the public where someone can learn to fly a blimp. It’s something like an apprenticeship program in which grizzled veterans pass along their expertise to the next generation. And, of course, blimp pilots are certified by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Unless you’re a dignitary, a cameraman or – woman, or can otherwise cajole an invitation, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever be able to climb aboard a blimp for an actual flight. Crew members may, however, let you look around the cabin and cockpit when the blimp is waiting between flights. If you are offered a ride in a blimp, don’t pass it up. Like a first kiss, a blimp ride is a once-in-a-lifetime thrill.

Though blimps are considered lighter-than-air aircraft, pilots can control their buoyancy and adjust their weight during a flight. During takeoff, some blimps are adjusted to “fly heavy,” meaning they are not weightless, but rather the volume of helium is adjusted so the blimp settles naturally to the ground. For example, if a Goodyear blimp settled down on a bathroom scale in its takeoff configuration, it would weigh about 150 pounds. Because it weighs that much, it must actually take off almost like an airplane, though from a much shorter runway, making a short forward run before the pilot uses the elevator controls to pitch the nose upward so the thrust from the propellers gives the blimp an upward push.

Here’s how a blimp gets off the ground. A ground crew, which can number as many as 15 people, grasps a railing near the base of the gondola. In unison, they press down hard on the rail, pushing the blimp down on its springy landing gear tire. The bouncy rebound, caused by springlike assemblies inside the gear mechanism, sends the blimp a few feet into the air, and while it’s airborne for a few seconds, the pilots check to make sure it’s balanced and ready to fly.

Then, for the actual takeoff, the crew does its bounce maneuver again while the pilot applies full throttle to the two propeller-equipped engines that pump out as much as 800 combined horsepower. With that, the blimp lumbers into the air for a flight that can last several hours.

Just as with a hot-air balloon, landing a blimp is not an elegant procedure. The two-person flight crew points the giant gasbag downward toward the mooring area, where the ground crew waits. As the blimp is slightly lighter than air, the pilot must drive it downward with engine power. If both engines quit during this phase of the flight, it’s interesting to note, the blimp wouldn’t crash, but instead would slowly rise higher into the air.

As the blimp nears its mooring mast, a rigid pole rising high off the ground to anchor the blimp, several crew members grab a long rope that hangs permanently from the nose of the envelope. Meanwhile, other members of the crew reach up and grab the gondola hand rail and use their body weight to anchor the blimp while the pilots adjust the helium pressure to give the airship some weight.

Between flights, blimp crew members service the giant machine, which has a habit of swiveling around its mooring mast with the wind like an oversized weather vane. Even on the ground, blimps attract steady crowds of curious onlookers, so that blimp ground crews and pilots spend most of their work hours doing public relations, which for many operators of blimps, such as Goodyear, is precisely the point.

Thanks to companies like Goodyear and a growing number of its competitors, airships are the most recognizable of all the lighter-than-air craft. Blimps have become regular features at sporting events and special occasions all over the world for a couple of reasons.

First, with a maximum airspeed of about 35 miles per hour, blimps can virtually hover over a single location for hours at a time. Second, there’s no more attention­grabbing billboard than a blimp trumpeting an advertising slogan.

Airships very nearly died out due to public panic after the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 killed 36 people in the air and on the ground. But engineers learned valuable lessons from the accident, most notably to use helium rather than hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas is explosive, and piping it into a tinder-try wooden framework covered with fabric that burns faster than paper was tempting fate, to say the least.

Engineers found that blimps filled with explosion-proof helium instead of hydrogen produced almost as much lifting power. And they provided enough peace of mind that blimps have become an accepted part of the sports and advertising landscape.

Anatomy of a Blimp

Blimps function much like a series of connected gas balloons with engine – driven propellers to give the whole contraption a little forward speed. Blimps are equipped with controls that enable the pilots to pitch the craft up and down or to yaw it (turn it) left or right.

Inside the taught skin of a blimp are thousands of cubic feet of helium and one or more bags of air called ballonets. A cubic foot of helium, which is a volume slightly larger than that of a shoebox, can lift just over an ounce. That’s not much, but helium’s lifting power lies in large numbers. When you pump 170,000 cubic feet of helium into a blimp’s envelope, you have an airship capable of lifting almost 11,000 pounds. Some airships hold enough helium to allow them to act as airborne cranes.

Here’s how the ballonets and helium envelope work together to keep the blimp flying.

On the ground, high atmospheric pressure squeezes the helium so much that it occupies a smaller area, meaning the blimp’s skin would wrinkle like a prune. After all, blimps don’t have any internal frame. They’re nothing more than fabric bags, keeping their shape only because of the pressure of the helium inside.

To prevent the blimp from wrinkling and losing its shape, large ballonets attached to the inside of the main helium bag are inflated with air, filling part of the vast interior space with air rather than helium. The air-filled pilot-controlled ballonets give the helium a smaller volume to fill while still filling up the familiar cigar shape.

As the blimp climbs to higher altitudes, the atmospheric pressure outside the blimp decreases. As a result, the helium inside the main envelope is able to expand while the ballonets are allowed to collapse so that helium can fill the entire envelope.

The credit for ballooning’s “takeoff" in recent years goes in part to a group of hardy aficionados who gave it a spark of life and a splash of color. In 1972, the first gathering of 13 balloons lifted off from Coronado Center shopping plaza in uptown Albuquerque. The pilots who made that mass ascension certainly had no inkling that what they were starting would become the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, the greatest pilgrimage for hot-air balloonists around the world.

Now, nearly 30 years later, the Albuquerque event has turned into a nine-day extravaganza that rivals the largest air shows for powered airplanes in terms of size and impact among balloon pilots and fanciers. It has become a worldwide draw, attracting no less than onefifth of all the balloons in the world.

Of course, where there’s one festival, there’s usually another. In the case of ballooning there are other major annual events that bring out hundreds of balloons and thousands of spectators.

In Indianola, Iowa, at the National Balloon Classic each summer, locals play host to a hundred balloons or more for a week. Every day, balloonists fire up their burners for two flights, one in the early morning and one in the early evening, when the winds are lightest and least treacherous. In the meantime, the festival resembles a county fair with performances by bands, road races, and a host of other activities to keep the family entertained.

Mass ascensions, in which a number of balloons
launch at the same time, might
be one of the most beautiful sights in aviation. Though
the scene looks chaotic, pilots and crews are careful to
stay safe.

(Allen Matheson, Photohome. com)

Plane Talk

One of the most spectacular events at any gathering of balloonists doesn’t take place in the air at all, but on the ground. It’s the "glow," and it begins in the late dusk or in the pitch black of night when dozens of balloonists light up the dark with the multicolored glow of burner flames inside the colorful craft. The key to getting the most light out of the propane flames is to adjust the burners to produce a flame that is not very efficient at producing heat, but is quite efficient at producing light. The night sky, lit up with a thousand colors amid the roar of butane burners, is an experience you’ll never forget.

The popularity of annual days-long events like the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and the National Balloon Classic is a sign of the increasing popularity of perhaps the most civilized of all forms of aviation. After all, where else does each flight come with a requirement to toast a successful landing with a tipple of champagne? Of course, balloon pilots are certified by the Federal Aviation Administration just like airplane pilots, so by law they can’t take a nip of the bubbly until the flight is over. But I still say balloon pilots know how to celebrate a successful flight better than any other flyer. As balloonists love to say, hot-air ballooning is “powered by propane and champagne.”

Imagination and Technology

Imagination and technology converge in ballooning as in no other aviation sport. Thanks to computers and specialized software, there’s almost no limit to the variety of designs of modern hot-air balloons.

Take the 1999 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta as an example. The balloons came in the shape of an enormous bald eagle, a huge, pink Energizer Bunny, a Mountain Dew can, a La-Z-Boy recliner, and even a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. (Do you get a sense that this sport, like others, has become a trifle commercialized?)

The 1999 National Balloon Classic featured a giant Burger King Whopper and a sky-high mock-up of a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup.

There were also plenty of balloons without noticeable commercial connections, though these are often sponsored by a friendly local business looking for a little publicity. For example, there are giant eagles and parrots, a Canadian Mountie on his horse, a race car, and—my personal favorite—the almost life-size space shuttle.

Special shapes help promote ballooning by bringing commercial support to an expensive sport, making it easier for pilots and crews to attend more events. They provide a dazzling spectacle as they cross the countryside. And they help promote the sport by bringing millions of delighted spectators out to balloon events each year!

Ballooning is among the easiest and least expensive forms of aviation you can get hooked on. If you decide to join with a few friends or family members to share the costs, ballooning can be downright cheap—well, cheap compared to the cost of airplane flying.

If you want to test your reaction to going aloft in a hot-air balloon, you can probably find a local ballooning flight school that, for about $150 or less, will take you on a flight and let you experience the feeling firsthand.

Ballooning schools are not nearly as common as training centers for other forms of aviation, except in some of the traditional ballooning hot spots such as New Mexico and other Southwestern states. But some searching on the Internet or asking around your local airport will turn up some leads.

Once you’re hooked on hot-air ballooning, you may start thinking about buying your own rig. Plan on paying between $15,000 and $35,000 for a new balloon, including envelope, gondola, instruments, burners, and fuel tanks. Insurance will add another $2,000 or so per year. Another cost savings over airplanes is in storage. For a balloon, you aren’t compelled to rent a hangar at a local airport or pay storage fees—just put the gondola and the rolled-up envelope in your garage.

You’ll need a private pilot certificate to fly a balloon. Lessons you’ll need in order to earn your private pilot’s certificate will add about $1,500 to your expenses provided you already have your own balloon and equipment. If you use the equipment provided by a flight school, the cost jumps to almost $2,500. Your instruction will involve almost 10 hours of flight training and another 10 hours of ground school. Most flight schools will include training materials in the price, but expect to add another $200 or more to pay an examiner’s fee once it’s time to take your final flight and ground exams. Yes, once again we see that aviation can be an expensive hobby.

Happy ballooning!

The Least You Need to Know

>■ Archimedes’ principle—that a body immersed in fluid loses weight equal to the weight of the amount of fluid it displaces—explains the buoyancy of hot-air balloons.

► From takeoff to landing and recovery, ballooning is a team effort

► A balloon pilot must have a thorough understanding of wind patterns.

^ Turn to Albuquerque or the other annual balloon festivals for the closest look at the sport

Chapter 12

Hybrids, Oddities, and Curiosities

In This Chapter

>■ Blimps: a closer look

>■ Gyroplanes: making a comeback to former glory >■ The Harrier jump jet: helicopter or airplane?

>■ Rozier balloons: around the world in 19 days

In Part 2, “The Thrill of Flight,” we’ve looked at the most common flying machines in which people take to the skies. But the dream of flight has not been realized only in the airplane, the helicopter, the glider, and the hot-air balloon. Other flying machines, though too impractical for general recreational use, enable people to accomplish incredible feats, whether it be flying around the world nonstop or just getting a really, really cool view of a football game.

Perhaps the best way to end this part of the book is to take a look at a few of these flying machines.