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The road trip started with the safety seminar and continued onward to Florida.

The final step in a person’s quest for a hot air balloon pilots license is to do a “Check Ride” with a FAA Certified Flight Examiner. Summer got away from use and with the Iowa examiner tied up with harvest, we drove to Louisville Kentucky to have our friend and examiner Matt Torgerson do the check ride.

So we loaded up Chris, Ryan, Lisa, Maggie, Bill and myself Saturday morning and drove to Louisville. Got up Sunday morning and did Chris’s check ride then drove back to Cedar Rapids.

~Susan

Long delayed, but still fun, The Glow.

What a great time hanging out in the evening with hundreds of friends. Glowing a Hot Air Balloon while pretty on the eyes its hard on the balloon. Balloons like to fly and its not in their temperament to just sit on the ground.

However, if the evening is calm and the crowd is festive it can be magical.

Everything was perfect and we had lots of photo opportunities.

~Susan

Safety Seminar is a great way to start each new season of Hot Air Ballooning. The seminar is an  all day event that features many different presenters cover a wide variety of topics including weather, FAA updates, and topics that promote safety.

This year was a repeat of the Louisville road trip minus Maggie. We loaded up Lisa, Chris, Ryan, Bill and myself then headed south to St. Louis. We are sad to report that one of our favorite chocolate shops Bissinger’s on  Maryland Ave, but the factory is still pumping out our favorites!

70 balloons, 75,000 people, food, drink, music whats not to love!

We love going to this event, just a little break before fall ballooning.
The Great Forrest Park Balloon Race

~Susan

I call it Birk Lake because a group of us would go to Jim Birk’s lake and fly balloons, eat, drink and be merry, long before there was a formal festival. We still go to Birk’s lake and now enjoy all the fun of the Defiance Hot Air Balloon Festival.

Past years have included skeet shooting, antique inflation fans, sweet corn competition and much more.

~ Susan

I should explain the title to those who may not understand. BattleCreek is a city in Michigan and each year around the 4th of July they host an air show and Hot Air Balloon Competition. I’ll fill you in on how balloonists compete further down, I also need to explain “Birk”.

 James “Jim” Birk has been my great friend since birds and balloons were the only things that flew. He has also been the Balloon Meister at BattleCreek for many years and this was his last year being in charge at this competition. Jim is a singular force of nature when it comes to ballooning and balloonists, his intellect and wry wit enable him to corral the pilots whose egos are more inflated then their balloons. It is that ability to control the uncontrollable that have people address him as Jim when talking with him and “Birk” when explaining to others what happened. I have lots of stories about him, some that can be told and others ………..

 

About “Birk”

 

What is a balloon competition?

Hot Air Balloon Competitions started like many other types of competitions — pilots gathering in social situations telling of their exploits in their balloons and someone said prove it.

It is a test of flying skills and getting your balloon to steer left, right, up and down to get to a target and drop a marker. Competition has changed over the years. In the past, observers were in the balloons to check on the pilots; those have been replaced with GPS. The balloons for competition have also changed. Smaller balloons can go up and down faster and the Linstrand Balloon factory designed what are called racers that can drop like a rock and shoot up like a rocket.

I go every year to BattleCreek to compete and to visit with my bigger balloon family. Here are a few pictures from the event.

~Susan

 The Crew The Carnival Here is Matt Balloons in the air

 

Let’s make it HOT! 

Next time we inflate I better not find anything that matches these on the balloon! ~Susan

 

Each year or 100 hours (whichever happens first) the balloon must be inspected by a certified inspection station. It’s great for us to be close to the Lindstrand factory and can take our balloons there to be checked.