Time | BY ALEX DOEHRER
Hot air balloonist Kevin Witt is a stickler for safety,
which should be a relief for anyone willing to splurge for a one-hour,
$165 balloon ride. Witt claims that the key to avoiding dangerous
situations is to watch the skies. “By paying attention to the weather, you
avoid accidents:’ he says. “A lot of people ask, ‘What if you get caught
in thunderstorm?’ Well, you don’t.” His unwillingness to challenge the
elements has paid off—he boasts a perfect safety record and is determined
to keep it that way. Many balloon accidents are the result of “operator
negligence”— anxious pilots who ignore weather patterns and go up anyway,
usually blame the wind for any problems. “The balloon goes with the wind,
so that can’t be an excuse:’ Witt says, adding that, in the event of
questionable weather, the pilot should always err on the side of caution.
“It’s better to be down wishing you were up, than up wishing you were
down.”
Witt, 37, owns and operates The Sky’s The Limit Ballooning, Inc.
out of his home in Lemont where he lives with his wife Kathryn, a
marketing manager at AccuWeather, and their two sons. A Penn State
graduate from the Bald Eagle area, Witt first became infatuated with
ballooning as a kid when he’d watch the hot air balloons take off on
Sunday afternoons during the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts
Witt later moved to Annapolis, Maryland, where, in 1992, he met his
ballooning mentor, Gordon Anderson. A year later he was an FAA certified
hot air balloon pilot and a licensed instructor. “I considered getting an
airplane prop license:’ he says,” but that requires 40 to 50 hours of
flight time and you need to learn the air space. With ballooning it’s 10
hours. And with my budget, that was reasonable.”
After learning that I was a contributor to State College Magazine,
Witt offers to take me up, free of charge. I accept, figuring a balloon
trip would be good fodder for a story, and on a windy Friday afternoon
last September, he met me in Ferguson Township to make good on his offer.
I quickly learn that the tell-tale signs of unfavorable ballooning weather
are moving branches and wild “pie balls”—helium-filled balloons released
to determine wind speed and direction. The winds calm
slightly, so Witt makes preparations for the flight. He stretches out the
60-foot balloon and begins to inflate it with two heavy-duty fans while I
hold the skirt of the balloon open. The air quickly fills the balloon and
Witt walks around it, inspecting, and occasionally tugging, the fabric.
Wearing gloves to avoid rope burn, I hold on tightly to the line that’s
keeping the balloon mouth open. After a few minutes, Witt turns one fan
off, and wheels it away. Then he heads for the burners, yells the standard
warning, “Hot and loud!” and turns them on. The flames shoot into the
balloon mouth, heating up the air and hastening the inflation. But the
breeze persists and Witt decides to call off the flight. “We could have
gone:’ he says. “But I don’t want to jeopardize my 100% safety
record.”
It’s a month and a half later, and we’re going to try again. I meet
Kevin at the Nittany Mall parking lot, where he waits in his van with
today’s volunteer crew—Josh Sorber and Scott Saxton, both of whom are 23
year-old Penn State undergrads. “Not much will get a college student out
of bed this early” says Saxton, who recently received his commercial
ballooning license.
The temperature is a brisk 33 degrees, and the winds are calm. Witt
tests a pie ball and it ascends almost straight up. Since we intend to
travel over State College and the winds are moving in a easterly
direction, we’re set up west of town at Haymarket Park. Witt quickly walks
around the inflating balloon, checking and double-checking, and then fires
up the burners. Two morning walkers stop to watch the balloon take shape.
Witt turns the second fan off and tells me to climb aboard, I get into the
basket, followed by Sorber, and then Witt hops in. Saxton will be the
one-man “chase crew” and follow us on the ground in the van.
We rise into the air, slower than an elevator, and watch the cars
and houses grow smaller. Witt uses his CB to inform the airport, “out of
courtesy” that the balloon was in the air. A balloon is steered through
the use of winds. The winds at different altitudes blow in different
directions. To steer, a balloonist ascends or descends the balloon and
flows with the direction of the winds. “When up in the sky, you don’t feel
the wind because you’re traveling with it Witt says. “Theoretically, you
could hold a candle up and it wouldn’t blow out. It’s three and a half
degrees cooler for every 1000 feet you go up, but it’s still relatively
warm, because people feel the warmth of the burner.”
The basket shakes and sways as we hover in the sky. The
neighborhoods below begin to look like a model railroad setup and the
construction on Interstate 99 resembles pieces of a puzzle. Simultaneously
awed and exhilarated, I’m in a state of bird’s-eye euphoria! We watch a
half-dozen deer running across a bare field and then fly over a day care
center where the children stare and wave excitedly at us. “Everyone knows
when you’re flying a balloon’ Witt says. An hour later, (though it seemed
like only minutes), it’s time to come down. As we look for a landing spot,
Witt communicates with Saxton in the van, studies the trees for an
indication of wind direction and, most importantly, watches for power
lines. We find a small field to land in, bouncing softly several times
before coming to rest. Suddenly, a van pulls up and two men get out. They
had been watching us fly and wanted information about ballooning and the
possibility of taking a ride. “Flying is the best advertising,” Witt tells
me after the men leave and we begin to pack up the balloon. Before we
finish, he reads the flight stats from his GPS. We flew 10 miles in one
hour and 19 minutes at an average of 7.6 miles per hour.
Once the balloon skirt is stored away and the basket is placed in
the trailer, we drive back to the mall parking lot for our cars. There we
have the traditional, post-flight champagne toast—substituting apple cider
for the bubbly since some of us had to work later that day—and Witt
recites a balloonist’s prayer that sums up the morning’s flight perfectly:
“The Winds have welcomed us with softness. The Sun has blessed us with
warm hands. We have flown so high and so well, that God has joined us in
our laughter. And He has set us gently back again. Into the loving arms of
Mother Earth.”
For further information, call (814) 234-5986 or visit The Sky's The Limit Website.
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