FLYING SUZY BLUE PART 6 - Excitement!

Are you ready for some REAL excitment now with Suzy Blue?

This adventure took place on July 25, 1982. We took Suzy Blue out for just some pleasure flying. The passenger's this lovely, summer night were two of our faithful crew members, who you've seen in various pictures with us even in out of state

Balloon Rally's.

One of the ways we paid back our crew for all their long hours and help was to give flights whenever the opportunity arose. So Mickey, Jean & Ed were having a glorious flight. At this time, in Tulsa, seeing a Hot Air Balloon in the sky was still quite a novelity. We often felt like Pied Piper as we would realize the long line of cars following us on the streets below.

This night there was one particular single gentlemen who had literally been following us for almost the entire flight. Ever so often he would pull his car over to the side of the road, jump out with his camera and take pictures. We were quite use to this but this gentlemen was more enthusiastic than most. The three in the basket had been waving to him from above and myself and the chase crew with me had been waving and giving High 5's back & forth with him.

You can see from this picture that Suzy Blue

was heading straight for downtown Tulsa.

I am going to give you a little bit of a ballooning lesson as I go along in this post. I think most of you know that the balloon does not have a steering wheel and the pilot and the balloon are being driven solely by the wind currents. The application of the heat from the propane burner is used solely to rise or lower in altitude.

The communication between the pilot (Mickey) and the chase crew driver (me) was done by CB radio. The flight had been of a pretty long duration this evening and the sun was beginning to get closer to going down.

The real skill of a Hot Air Balloon Pilot is in the 1) inflation , 2) the lift off and 3) and most difficult, the landing. Suzy Blue had been flying for quite some time over a very heavy populated area of town. One of the main things the pilot is on the look out for is an area large enough to safety land.

You can see from this shot that Suzy Blue was flying fairly low as Mickey was keeping his eyes open for that safe landing spot.

He called down to me "TU is just up ahead and I'm going to put her down in the quadrant between the 2 buildings. Be sure the crew is there and ready to grab us because I'm going to have to put her down pretty fast and hard."

Now I understood exactly what he meant. The ideal situation is to slowly reduce the height of the balloon and gently glide her down to the ground. In this particular situation, the slow reduction of height and gentle glide were not going to be possible because, 1) there was a 3 story building to the South where Suzy Blue was approaching from, 2) there was another 3 story building looming up ahead to the North, 3) there was a rather small grassy area between the two. Mickey had to clear the first 3 story building, quickly pull the top of the balloon out (which is what lets the air out) and fall at a higher height and rate of speed than normal.



None of us, either in the balloon or on the ground, were concerned because Mickey was a superb pilot and the winds were calm.






This is a picture of part of the building taken as the chase vehicle and crew race toward the parking area and jump out of the vehicle in preparation to catch Suzy Blue when she lands. We knew she would bounce and we would have to grab her quickly.

Enter our friendly, constant, enthused, picture taking, driver!!! He pulled up to the curb, right in front of where Mickey was putting Suzy Blue down, jumps out of his car to begin his picture taking. I am SHOUTING, "GET THAT CAR OUT OF HERE!" It is too late. Suzy Blue lands just behind the vehicle and then drags across the trunk, smashing the rear window. Rises a little and lands on the grass as planned.

The chase crew is there to quickly grab the basket and hold it down. The person in the yellow shirt to the right top of the picture has been given the crown line by Mickey. She runs out with it and is pulling to get the balloon laid out on the ground. The basket is then laid over, the air is squeeze out of the balloon, she is then rolled up and placed in her balloon bag

This picture gives you a good look at the second 3 story building.


Here is the car....you can see the man jumped out to do his picture taking so quickly he didn't even shut the door. When Suzy Blue is safely in place and everything has calmed down, Mickey turns and says, "Who does this car belong to?" This man, standing back a little and trying to be inconspicious, timidly raises his hand and says in a very meek and mild voice, "Mine".

By this time students are coming from every direction to see the Hot Air Balloon and all this excitement. We have quiet an audience

This is a shot of the broken glass in the back seat. Now comes the really good part. The car was a company car!!!! Mickey got all the pertinent information and gave him our information and told him our insurance company would take care of it.

All os us had a good laugh and thought how we'd like to be there when he went into his boss on Monday morningg and said, "I was hit by a Hot Air Balloon." "WHAT?" We would also loved to see the expression on the Insurance Agents and Adjusters faces.

One of the major expenses of owning a hot air balloon is the insurance. We were fortunate in the years we flew to have only 2 small claims. This one and one other, where a horse, out in the country, got spooked by the sound of the burner and ran through a fence.

Thanks for flying with Suzy Blue once again. Stay tuned for the next adventure!