 My name is Harry Season. I'm a member of the Board of Directors of the Abacurkey International Balloon Fiesta. We're here on Sunday morning of our first weekend of a nine-day event. This is our 49th year for the Balloon Fiesta and we're managed by a Board of Directors of 24 volunteers plus about another thousand volunteers who come out and help us out during the week. We also have a paid staff of about 20 people who work year-round on the event to get it ready here. In addition to our paid staff and we have to pay a number of people like our public safety people and people who help clean the field and things like that but about a thousand different volunteers who work during the week everything from being greeters to working in the official merchandise tents to being on chase crews for balloons they can come and volunteer to be on a chase crew so all different kind of jobs that they can come down here and help us with. This field what's the acreage? The acreage here the total park is around 250 acres but that includes all of our parking areas to the north and the south of the field and frankly to the east of the field we have 250 launch squares on the on the property here and so we can launch about 250 balloons in one wave as you saw this morning and then the second wave of another 250 or so balloons so we can accommodate a massive number of balloons here on the field. Next year is going to be the 50th anything special plan? We have lots of special things planned but they're all top secret at this point so that we can build up the excitement as we lead up to next year's events but yes we're going to do a number of different things that will be celebrating our 50th year. My name is Dale Richie and what do you fly? I fly the cow balloon for cream on dairies, Arabelle the flying count. Tell us about your balloon. Well it's one of the biggest shapes here it's in fact probably at this moment it is the biggest shape here weighs about 950 pounds so it's it's been flying in Albuquerque since 1989 so it's the longest longest corporate program actually of any of the shapes. You've flown it in Wisconsin too. Yeah back in the back in the early days of the cow when we've the first cow that we built we flew it for the Wisconsin milk marketing board in Wisconsin and then since then it's been sold to cream on dairies and that's who we've been flying it's owned by dairy farmers it's cream land is owned by the dairy farmers of America yeah talk about how many people help you do this well we've got a crew of right now probably close to 30 people but they're doing back there they're packing everything up and ready to go yeah so but usually you know we can usually do it with about 15 people but but like I said the more the merrier and it is a big heavy balloon so it's nice to have lots of lots of people helping. Do you do other events besides here? Well with cream land we pretty much just do Albuquerque now but we we used to do more events like in Houston and Dallas and Louisville Kentucky up in Las Vegas and Reno they are actually talking about possibly starting to take the cow out to some of those events again now with the new owners of the of the of the company so that that's gonna be good we'll be able to travel a little bit more with it and and spread it around a bit yeah where was this balloon made? Well the original balloon was built in Bristol England in Cameron balloons then we we retired that balloon in 1996 we built another one then the third one was built in 2004. We're here with Jerry Garcia he's from Albuquerque and he has 41 years of experience. Jerry tell me more about the history of ballooning. Well ballooning started with two brothers they're Montgolfier and 1783 they they owned a paper factory and of course this story goes several different ways with different pilots but they went outside their paper factory and saw smoke coming up out of the chimneys of the homes and they figured that they can capture the smoke in some kind of a bag maybe it'll go up with the smoke and black smoke so they went in and they built a big paper bag and this was pretty good size they decorated up real fancy put a little platform on the bottom of it and they went outside and built a huge fire and started throwing all kinds of objects in there to turn this fire black the smoke black and the fire so it's they put their platform or a balloon over it and it started to rise up well they grabbed a chicken duck and pig and put it on the platform because they were afraid there was no oxygen above the earth and they didn't want to sacrifice a human so they went ahead and did that and it lifted up off the ground went across the countryside it landed in this field full of peasants and they saw this thing with all the black smoke building out of it they thought it was a demon that just flew in well they went over there and totally destroyed it with their pitchforks no one knows what happened to the animals but you know they were sacrificed in one way or another well there was a French nobleman that saw what was going on and he went to the Montgolfiers and told him he'd be honored to fly in their new contraption so they went back to their paper factory and they did build a bigger balloon but this time out of silk and they put a lot of fancy decorations on it put another platform on it went back out built another big fire and got all the black black smoke they could out of it again because they didn't know it was just the heat that caused it to rise they thought it was a smoke so the French nobleman got on the platform and it started to lift up and went back across countryside and it landed back in that same field again and these peasants came back after it again well he stepped out with a bottle of champagne in his hand and said the they finally decided that anybody sophisticated enough to drink champagne couldn't be the demon so that's how we celebrate our first landings for first-time flyers or if we land in somebody's property we honor offer them a bottle of champagne and it's just part of the custom of ballooning now the champagne while the Irish got involved in it too and everybody figured it was gotta be the alcohol is why the Irish got involved but they came up with their own prayer and it's the Irish balloonist prayer and we like to say this prayer after every flight this is for the next day and the prayer goes like this the winds of wealth in you a softness the sun has blessed you with its warm hands you have flown so high and so well that God has joined you in laughter and has set you gently back into the loving arms of Mother Earth amen and that's what we like to end our flight with with these other two people were they first time flyers yes these are our first time flyers that we we try to keep this as a secret so that first time flyers don't know but as many times as it happens now a lot of them do know what's going on but these that I had did not know what was gonna happen so there are some that are surprised what happens on this for their first flight yeah this is the you know we like to give people first flights because they're really amazed by what goes on with ballooning and how the balloon is flown and how we control it so it it's very interesting to people that have never seen it before my balloon was made in New Jersey it's a custom nine balloon it's 100,000 cubic feet we call it 10 tie that's a Japanese word for Heavenly Spirit now it's it's the second one that looks like it right now it only has about a hundred hours on it and it's just something that I enjoy doing and of course my wife along with me and all our crew it's just it gets in your blood and you just can't stop it it's just there and it's special people I would say are interested in it and there's not too many in this world that can that fly balloons but we get a lot of them here there's over 500 balloons here and it's a worldwide event so we we have a great time with it we like meeting all the people from all over the world and you'll never see this in any place else on as Mr. Z he was built in Brazil and my husband was looking for a special shape to buy and he saw it advertised they they have a business model that they build balloons special shapes balloons down there and then they bring them up here to sell them so he saw that one online and called me into his office and said what do you think of this one because he was thinking of getting a special shape and I said oh he's cute so we decided to buy Mr. Z and he was built in honor of the launch directors here in Albuquerque and other places but I think I don't know if it started here but they're called zebras because of the black and white stripes which are like referee type uniforms but then here in Albuquerque they all kind of dress up to to emphasize the zebra part and we're the zebra balloon you want to know about the competition a lot of the competition is with a large X on the ground so they they put fabric strips on the ground and then the balloonists have a little beanbag thing that's about this big and then it's it's got a long streamer on it so they have to come over they have to maneuver they have to find the winds that are right for them so that they can get here and then they try to get as close above the X as they can and they drop their marker it's it's called a marker and then they have to get it as close as they can to the center of the X but it's not always an X sometimes there are two triangles that meet in the center sometimes it's called a minimum distance so they have to get them as close together but they have to be within the triangles sometimes it's maximum distance they have other kinds of shapes that they do at some of the more sophisticated competitions here they usually I think just do an X or and then sometimes they have a pole with a prize on it they have to put a ring that's about this big over the pole and then they win a prize of money or whatever I am Joe Balangy I'm a launch director they also call us zebras for some unknown reason but yeah launch directors nobody takes off unless we give them permission to take off so the pilots put on the show but we kind of control the show this is my seventh year as a zebra but this is my 26th or seventh year at balloon fiesta before that I was on chase crew and I decided after 19 years of being on chase crew I wanted to see fiesta from a different perspective and I applied to be a zebra and now here I am we get to be ambassadors for balloon fiesta and for albuquerque and for New Mexico we meet and greet the public we meet and greet the pilots and the crews that come from literally around the world and around the country so we get to associate with a whole lot of really cool people it's just fun I mean we we just I just like it because there's so many people so much happening and it's a beautiful event with all the balloons it's just be great to be a part of something like this what kind of criteria oh well okay what we say is we do a safe coordinated launch which means that first of all safety before we can give anybody clearance to fly we're checking around them we're looking side to side to make sure there's nothing in their way on the on the side if another balloon is close by we're more importantly we're looking overhead to make sure that there's no balloon flying above them to where we would launch them and they would bump in another one so that's really really key we're we're watching 360 around that balloon to make sure before we give them okay to launch that they're going to be going into a safe space coordinated we're looking side to side to see what the other zebras are doing what the other balloons are doing we're also looking past our balloon to the next balloons coming up thinking ahead and coordinating trying to make sure that everybody goes off in a nice coordinated manner so nobody's bumping into each other and everybody's kept safe some balloons toward the end of launch and it's always toward the end they're given the option do you want to take off or you can we call static they can just stand up and some balloons decide for various reasons that we'll just we'll just stand up it's a way to put on a show for the crowd because it gives people the opportunity to come over close to the balloon that's not flying and they can look at it and take pictures and talk to the pilot and crew that sort of stuff some of them that they make the decision just because I don't need to fly today or maybe I'm not really happy with the winds so there's multiple reasons but if you see after the flight and the main flight there's balloons just standing there it's perfectly okay they have to coordinate with the zebras to let us know when we go up to them what are your plans and they'll tell us I'm just going to stay on the ground excellent as long as the we get word that that's field is clear to do that that's not a problem little there's a low layer that's slow there's a middle layer that's fast just drop a season three are very close to the ground so they're skimming for a place to land they're probably a hundred feet I've got to figure those trees are 50 to 70 the pumpkin is flying right beside us we're fixing to cross the now the wind is twisting us can we land in there good thank you using the squeezer Bob O'Brien from Wapaka Wisconsin here in lovely Albuquerque for probably about my 20th time I tend to come back every about every year lately but every other year we make it make the trip out from Wapaka Wisconsin to Albuquerque so we're here again this year with our new balloon a new watermelon balloon so this is my second watermelon balloon my original balloon was the meloon that was a 97 Lindstrand hot air balloon flew that for quite a few years she got a little old had to retire her had another balloon that I was flying but two years ago I decided to build another watermelon balloon so this is manufactured by Lindstrand balloons they're out of Hanover no actually they're out of Delina Illinois now and this balloon was made about a year ago so this is the first time that it's in Albuquerque so we're showing it off here in Albuquerque this year so we're having quite a bit of fun with it it's a Lindstrand 90,000 cubic foot balloon it's just a standard balloon shape but with the artwork on the balloon it makes it look like a watermelon balloon so my first balloon meloon my second balloon is now seed quill so this is my second balloon all right I'm asked how did I get involved with ballooning my wife and I about 30 years ago went out to a friend's wedding in Sedona Arizona we spent the night in Tucumcari New Mexico got up early because we were meeting people for lunch in Sedona as we were driving through Albuquerque the festival was going on hundreds of balloons in the air me being who I am I'm behind the wheel I'm driving my wife sitting next to me all this is lovely me oh yeah I'm driving you know down the road I go she puts her foot down and says if this is still going on when we come back from Sedona we're going for a balloon ride sure enough it was still going on so I went for a balloon ride it was like a key going into a lot I loved it so much went back home now 30 years ago we didn't have a lot of internet that we have today try and find somebody to sell you a hot air balloon it was very difficult but eventually through some diligent research etc. I was able to find people that were in the hot air ballooning and we we got into the sport bought a balloon learned to fly it it is a licensed balloon you you have to have a pilot's license so I had to go through pilot training did all of that but that's basically the story how I got into it the boys steady company since 1996 and happy and I ever when there was not an official event one of these special shapes what's what's different from other the special shapes always seem to draw a bit more interest and everybody really seems to have their own special special shape one that they love the most and Humpty's kind of been an icon for Albuquerque Fiesta since 96 joy to people who notice when you were back further out but as you walk around Humpty's eyes are designed so that they follow you as you walk from one side of the balloon to the other so when you're looking at Humpty is one of the easier special shapes to put down it's the size of a 12-story apartment building and it takes a crew to 12 to 20 to put that one away Humpty we can put away with six people comfortably now today explain what they're doing and why we're not going up okay today while it looks great on the ground for the balloons the winds the lofts starting below 500 feet above the ground are rather brisk and at 500 feet they turn directly towards the mountain parts of Sandia reservation with roads and it makes it difficult to retrieve the balloons and if we end up on the side of the mountain it's definitely harder to retrieve them from there so we're not flying this morning we don't want to put all these balloons up and have very easy to retrieve