Potshots, Powerlines, and Mountain Peaks: The Perils Albuquerque's Ballonist Pioneers Faced

Gunfights from Hydrogen-filled ballons? Well, not quite, but it was a near miss. (Well, nine or ten near misses.) In this episode, Johnny and Drew blow some hot  air and puff up New Mexico's ballooning history, from coal-gas flights to shots fired to the first pass over the mountains, and all the way to today's 51st anniversary of the International Balloon Fiesta.

We'll hear about Roy Stamm  and Joseph Blondin as they attempt a daring flight over the Manzano Mountains, battling turbulent winds and narrowly escaping getting shot at and ultimately a crash in cactus patch. We'll also celebrate the triumphs of Ed Yost, the father of modern-day hot air ballooning, and Sid Cutter -- the father of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Whether you're a history aficionado or a ballooning enthusiast, buckle up for this journey through Albuquerque's vibrant ballooning history!

For Further Reading:
https://eastmountainhistory.org/balloonfight/
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/gondola-double-eagle-2/nasm_A19790532000
https://www.sos.nm.gov/about-new-mexico/state-aircraft/
https://infogram.com/koat-balloon-fiesta-history-timeline-1h7z2l8qqo7gx6o

And an update: Apparently balloonists aren't safe from potshots even today. Two gas balloon pilots were fired on and crashed in Texas after launching from the 2023 Balloon Fiesta. https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/gordon-bennett-ballon-race-pilot-says-he-was-avoiding-gunfire-before-crash/

Transcript

Drew: 0:11

Welcome to the Enchantment Chronicles featuring Johnny, the Man of Enchantment, himself, and me and Drew. Yeah, drew.

Johnny: 0:22

And Drew.

Drew: 0:23

Yeah, Johnny. What are you excited to tell us about today?

Johnny: 0:30

Well, today we're going to be talking about the state aircraft. Drew, you have any guesses?

Drew: 0:37

I was thinking UFO. I was going to go with Roswell UFO as the state aircraft.

Johnny: 0:46

Did guess, but no, no, no, shockingly, no we're recording this in early October. What's going on in early October in Albuquerque Drew?

Drew: 0:58

It's the International Balloon Fiesta. It's the 51st anniversary of the International Balloon Fiesta here in 2023.

Johnny: 1:08

That's right. There's your answer, Drew. There's five states in the United States that has an official state aircraft and ours is the only non-plane.

Drew: 1:22

How about that? Wow, that's pretty impressive, drew. Is it the balloon? Then it's a hot air balloon.

Johnny: 1:30

It's a hot air balloon, March 1st 2005, the legislature passed a bill approving the hot air balloon as the official state aircraft. Governor Bill Richardson signed the bill into law and we've then we've got the state aircraft 105 in the United States. How about?

Drew: 1:52

that? How about that? How about that Stop? There's a pretty solid reason. Albuquerque, new Mexico, has a pretty clear claim to being the balloon capital of the world. It's kind of related to our air conditions. Here We've got something called a box where if you take a balloon up in the air, the air swirls off the mountains in certain ways, so that by going to different altitudes the balloonists could kind of fly in a circle roughly. They're not obligated to go in a straight line for 60, 90 miles and get picked up and brought back. In fact, every year there's a noble tradition Dogs start barking at the sound of roaring balloons in yards everywhere, but also balloons will frequently land at elementary schools or middle schools in their fields throughout Albuquerque this week, because so many of them are launching right.

Johnny: 3:02

Yeah, some 500 something are launching this year. Wow.

Drew: 3:06

Wow.

Johnny: 3:07

Largest ever, and I think we've already got one that has landed on a telephone wire or an electric wire.

Drew: 3:17

Happens every year.

Drew: 3:18

Maybe not every year, but yeah, this year we were fortunate. We'll hear a little bit about that proud tradition of almost running in the power lines too. But apparently the first well ballooning goes back to 1793 in France. But the first recorded balloon flight in Albuquerque was in 1882, when a guy named Professor Parc Van Tassel by professor we mean Carney, professor, the Carnival Professor managed to launch a balloon. Well, that was a part of the 4th of July and Territorial New Mexico, territorial Affairs. New Mexico, of course, doesn't become a state until 30 years later, in 1812. So in the 1880s and 1890s there's a few launches. Oh, my goodness, you've got a great image coming up, johnny, it's.

Johnny: 4:18

May 26, 1889. It was one of the First flights. I guess the first flight was in the 1882.

Drew: 4:30

In Abacur yeah.

Johnny: 4:33

Yeah, but it looks like there's this guy hanging from a parachute. There's not a gondola on this balloon.

Drew: 4:46

Yeah, it says balloon ascensions and parachute jumps of over one mile by the great Van Tassel, who has been engaged at great expense. This is from Garfield Beach, so presumably not from New Mexico. They say 1889 ad.

Johnny: 5:04

The first one was in May of 1882 in Albuquerque and they spent a full day of inflation with coal gas from Albuquerque gas works. He made his first flight. First human flight in New Mexico was 615 pm July 4, 1882. He launched near 2nd Street between Railroad and Gold Avenue and he rose slowly in his city of Albuquerque balloon to an apex of 11,000 feet.

Drew: 5:37

Whoa.

Johnny: 5:38

And he landed in the Central Avenue, rio Grande Boulevard, fairgrounds which is now the Galt Country Club area, and it was a complete success, meaning he did not die.

Drew: 5:58

That is how we define success.

Johnny: 6:01

Yeah, so that was the first balloon flight in Albuquerque.

Drew: 6:07

Wow, Okay, by 1907,. We're having territorial affairs. We're really trying to hype ourselves up. We're having territorial affairs, we're really pushing for statehood.

Drew: 6:22

And an Albuquerque merchant named Roy Stam partners up with an experienced Aeronaut, Joseph Blondin, who and by experience we mean he's flown 13 times without dying in a balloon. That's pretty impressive. He's a veteran. And they decided to launch and fly up the Rio Grande Valley, presumably from those same fairgrounds with a country club is. Now they head up and we owe a lot to our friends over at East Mountain Historical Society, particularly Dick Brown, who wrote an article and had some thoughts and had some photographs provided courtesy of the Stam family.

Drew: 7:12

We'll have that link posted for you all. But Dick Brown himself is a balloonist who has flown over the Sandia Mountains pretty impressively. But these guys, they head up the Rio Grande and they said it was a successful flight, despite the fact that he was that they were shot at eight times up in the village of Alameda and they wind up landing on the Corralis Mesa, which probably is about where Rio Rancho is today, right where Intel is, because that's the Mesa right above the village of Corralis, and they successfully headed right up the Rio Grande Valley and there was a lot of people pleased with them?

Johnny: 8:03

Did they shoot back?

Drew: 8:06

They didn't. But a couple of years later they did, kind of reluctantly, have to let go of their six shooter. They had a pistol. They took a year off in 1908. By 1909, the coal gas is a thing of the past, I guess. And for the territorial fare of 1909, they have a leaky wooden vat and they're using iron filings and sulfuric acid to make hydrogen and they're sending people up for $10 a piece, 500 feet on a tethered rope in their balloon 500 feet.

Johnny: 8:52

It's like 50 stories, right. That's pretty. That's pretty high up there For $10 in 1909.

Drew: 9:00

Yeah, that's not cheap. That's not cheap, and by then the territorial fare is a big deal, right? President Taft shows up.

Johnny: 9:12

President. Taft shows up, yeah, and he wishes them a congratulations on, I guess, not dying. Yeah $10 in 1909 is worth $337 today.

Drew: 9:25

Wow, okay, so this is like Las Vegas style entertainment, and Taft must have been impressed because 27 months later he signed the bill that will eventually make us the 47th state in January of 1912. So then you know, their leaky vat of sulfuric acid has worked great, but it's kind of running out. So what a blog didn't Stan decide to do? Stan decided that, with like 75% of the hydrogen, now would be a great time to fly over some 10,000 foot tall mountains. They have 75% of their capacity in the balloon, so they can only carry the two of them in about 100 pounds of ballast. And these balloons they work by shedding weight. They shed weight to go up and then they vent off their gas to go down, and whether you want them to or not, they're going to vent off their gas slowly. They realized they could carry the two of them along with 100 pounds of ballast, but they had to abandon their overcoats, their camera and their six-shooter, as well as some food and half their water, and the two of them agreed to. And the flight nearly naked.

Drew: 10:53

If that was what it took to set a record by getting out of sight of Albuquerque, do you want to describe the mountains? What east of Albuquerque. Johnny, how would you describe the face that faces Albuquerque? Pretty rocky I guess, yeah, pretty vertical it's. They get pretty sheer and so the winds are going to take them straight towards those cliffs and it starts out pretty inauspiciously. They almost run into some trolley wires but they toss over just enough ballast to clear them and they pass kind of luckily south of the sandias, which are the taller of the two sets of mountains, but the Manzano Mountains are south of us. They have four peaks within 30 miles and they range from 9,400 to 10,000 feet, and again, pretty sheer. It's not like you're going to run into a gentle slope if you run into those.

Drew: 11:59

So they pass south of Albuquerque, south of where I-40 passes through to Harris Canyon. Now they get shot at again over Escobar and you know, poor guys, they don't even have their six-shooter to shoot back, although I don't think getting into a gunfight from a balloon is super advisable. They pass north of Chalili and Macintosh, some smaller communities in the East Mountains, and then at the end they start descending rapidly and toss over some ballast and toss over kind of an anchor hook and nearly crash into a cactus patch. But luckily two cowboys, charlie Cawkins and Louis Bachman show up and give them a bump for the night at the McGillivray Ranch, mcgillivray Ranch, and then they take them, and their balloons still intact, by a wagon to the train station the next day. So pretty wildly successful flight. They traveled what? Up to 50 miles an hour, riding those winds and wind up, traveling about 90 miles.

Johnny: 13:22

In the end they wind up about 10 miles south. Did they go through the canyon to Harris Canyon?

Drew: 13:32

No, they went south of the canyon. The note from the editor at the East Mountain Historical Society mentions that Dick Brown, the author of the article, has a unique perspective because he had to go 13,000 feet on his first flight over the 10,000 feet foot tall Sandia Mountains Because he was concerned about the turbulence. As you hit those cliffs you also have to worry about how high the winds are pushing you on swirling around them. So they wound up traveling 90 miles on about two hours and 25 minutes, apparently by Dick Brown's estimate, or maybe by their records, because he mentions that they took pretty thorough records that they probably got up around 13,000 feet Right before their almost crash landing. They dropped 8,000 feet in four minutes as their gas is running out. Pretty scary ride also, and that, possibly because it was so terrifying, was it for about the next 50 or so years. In Albuquerque they were not eager to repeat their success. What's next? In our history, we have a pioneer that eventually winds up in New Mexico, right, johnny?

Johnny: 15:10

Yeah, a guy by the name of Ed Yoast. He is the father of modern-day hot air ballooning. He eventually makes it out to New Mexico and sets up shop, but early in 1960, he makes the first ever free flight of a modern hot air balloon in Nebraska.

Drew: 15:34

He's originally from Iowa, I think, and lived in South Dakota for a minute. It's kind of interesting.

Johnny: 15:40

He was a World War II pilot right. The World War II pilot. He worked for General Mills, I believe.

Drew: 15:49

I think a stereo, but he worked for a subdivision right.

Johnny: 15:54

A subdivision in their scientific balloon program. Who knew in Sioux Falls, south Dakota, and he did secret research for General Mills in their scientific balloon program, after which he becomes the father of the modern-day balloon hot air balloon industry, I guess.

Drew: 16:19

And it was secret. He was defense contractor stuff. Am I right about that? He just kept saying we don't talk about that whatever. Anybody would ask him what he was doing working for General Mills and scientific ballooning right.

Johnny: 16:32

Yeah, I think it must have been. It was they ended up. There's a subsidiary called the Raven Industries.

Drew: 16:42

Okay.

Johnny: 16:42

Yeah, but yeah, I think it was contracted by the US Navy's Office of Naval Research to create reusable lightweight balloons that would carry people and I'm assuming there was some military use for it. But after he left he founded the company and he started manufacturing balloons himself. He built the balloon named the Channel Champ that in 1963 in April. It was the first hot air balloon that to cross the English Channel, piloted by a guy named Don Picard. But he moved to Vadito, New Mexico, and made balloons for the rest of his life.

Drew: 17:35

Wow, and it kind of becomes a cottage industry here. So nine years later one of our local broadcast stations, kob, was celebrating their 50th anniversary, and an employee of KOB, tom Rutherford, partners with a local balloonist, I guess an accidental balloonist, sid Cutter. And Sid Cutter's first flight in a balloon came when it took off, as he was trying to hang onto it. He was trying to hang it onto the ground and instead of reacting, as I might, with sheer terror, he loved the experience and they organized the 1972 balloon fiesta at the Coronado Center, which is a mall, you know, not far from where I live. It was not a resounding success. I guess there was 13 balloons the first year because there was bad weather out in east of us that kept most of the balloonists from even being able to drive into Albuquerque, so only 13 took off in the parking lot.

Johnny: 18:52

This was in February. Yeah, were the first ones in February. Yeah, I believe February of 1972? Mm-hmm.

Drew: 19:04

Yeah, you're foreshadowing a later shift. But the next year Tom Motherford starts working with Sid Cutter. He leaves KLB and Albuquerque hosts the first World Hot Air Balloon Championship at the New Mexico State Fairgrounds and then continues for a few years. Right, they move in 75 to a someplace called Sims Field. Do you know where Sims Field is, johnny?

Johnny: 19:36

You know, I do not.

Drew: 19:39

Well, they won't have to stay there forever. But they incorporated the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiest as a non-profit. And then in 1978, ed Yoast kind of rises again. He designs the Double Legal 2, which is a huge balloon that has a three-person gondola called the Spirit of Albuquerque, and three Berkenos, ben Abruso, maxi Anderson and Larry Newman ride in that Spirit of Albuquerque all the way across the Atlantic Ocean and it's a pretty big deal.

Drew: 20:22

They make it to Ireland and then they continue on to France. They get congratulated as soon as they hit Ireland. You've made it officially to Europe and France had offered to had actually shut down the airport where Charles Lindbergh flew in near Paris or maybe even in Paris. They closed all the air traffic so they could hopefully land there. But in the proud Albuquerque tradition of our earlier pilots, they started losing altitude rapidly. Instead they land in Mise-les-francs in a wheat field. But today that gondola, the spirit of Albuquerque, is in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and the Abruzzo Anderson Museum, which is the International Bloom Fiesta's Museum over at the fairgrounds today is called the Abruzzo Anderson Museum and it's right up the hill from where Roy Stam and Joseph Blondin were first shot at eight times in the village of Alameda in 1907. So the blooming has gotten considerably safer here, even if there are power lines. And it just continues to grow, right, johnny?

Johnny: 21:36

It does. And then we've been to quite a few different one, two, three, four, five, six different locations the Coronado Center, sims Field, which is I-25 in Jefferson, then moved to Cutter Field, osuna and Edith and I-25. Then Old Bidloon Fiesta Park, which is Alameda and Edith, probably near where the first shooting was, and now in 1996, it moved to Balloon Fiesta, where it is now Balloon Fiesta Park.

Drew: 22:14

Yeah, 1990, along the way they start hosting these gas balloon races and I guess those are referred to because they don't just use propane. They're long distance races, but these gas balloon championships. We've hosted a few of the world gas balloon championships as well over the years.

Johnny: 22:40

And now Balloon Fiesta has a bunch of different. They've introduced many different nights there's Balloon Fiesta is usually about 10 days first week in October sometime. Now we have 1987, the first balloon glow which. What does that mean, drew?

Drew: 23:00

That's when they just light them up at night, because the best conditions, even in October, are when the air is still really cold here to launch. It's easier to get up, and then the air warms up and so it gets easier to descend without making radical changes to your ballast or anything. So they tend to launch right at dawn in October. So not everybody is suited to get a couple hours before dawn to navigate the traffic to the Balloon Fiesta Park. So they started having evening events where they just inflate the balloons and they're beautiful as they're inflated.

Drew: 23:43

The furnaces that heat the air successfully just cause the balloons to naturally close. So you have these balloon glows at night where they generally they're not launching, they're just lighting them up and you walk up and down and it kind of looks like a wonderland of all these different patterns and shapes, and people love that too. And then in news that would kind of horrify our friend Ed Yoast, we got a special shape to Odeo a couple of years later.

Johnny: 24:15

You got all sorts of stuff Smokey Bear.

Drew: 24:18

Yeah, not designed for setting records, right? Not designed for long distance travel or espionage. There, they're just cute To be at Darth Vader and Smokey Bear and Yoda flies. And then, I think in 96, they officially set a record at the 25th Balloon Fiesta for a number of balloons launching 2020, it's postponed and now we're celebrating, and in 2022 we celebrated our 50th.

Johnny: 24:56

However, since we didn't celebrate it in 2020 and we started in 1972, is it really drew this the 50th or the 51st?

Drew: 25:08

It's the 51st anniversary. It might be the 49th festival, but it continues to change over time. We have several other balloon rallies in New Mexico that you could attend.

Johnny: 25:29

Yeah, there's quite a few Balloons over Angel Fire in June. Elephant Butte balloon regatta in.

Drew: 25:36

August.

Johnny: 25:36

Yeah, adding reference to it. I've never been to any of these White Sands balloon invitational in September. Tows Mountain balloon rally in October. After this year it's going to be October 27th through the 29th. Okay 2023, I suspect, out there on the Mesa. And then December 1st through the 3rd is going to be the Red Rock balloon rally in Gallup, new Mexico. That's the 42nd annual.

Drew: 26:07

Wow.

Johnny: 26:08

So that must have started eight years after the Albuquerque International balloon fiesta.

Drew: 26:15

Congratulations, that's. That's hanging in there, and Tows Mountain has gotten what the 40th anniversary. So the White Sands balloon invitational Looks like it, because you have to get invited, because it's so near the Air Force base, you know. Just let anybody fly a balloon there.

Johnny: 26:35

So there's a lot of history here in New Mexico about balloons. I guess the state aircraft was a good decision. I certainly.

Drew: 26:45

yeah, I think I think they. I think they knew what they were talking about when they when they declared the hot air balloon in the state aircraft of New Mexico. All right, well, thank you to the East Mountain History and to East Mountain Historical Society and to KOB and KOAT that provided us with a lot of background information and, of course, our local newspapers, the Albuquerque Journal and the Santa Fe New Mexican, provided us with a lot of resources that we'll be happy to put up on the on the website for you all. Thanks for listening.

Johnny: 27:28

Adios, adios.