Up, Up and Away> Book on U.S. balloonists is an uplifting story

RIDE THE WIND: USA TO AFRICA, by Anne Hillerman, Rio Grande Publishing.

Where were you at 3 a.m. Sept. 16, 1992? Most of us were home in bed, although it appears that there was a significant group of eccentrics assembled at Bass Park to assist and witness the liftoff of the first Chrysler Transatlantic Challenge.

By now you are remembering that teams of two pilots representing five countries were to fly from here to Europe using identical equipment. This was to put the premium on pilot ability and, as it turned out, dumb luck. These weren’t your garden-variety balloons and wicker baskets from which you can view Bangor and Brewer on a lazy fall morning as a light fog hangs over the Penobscot. They were 90 feet tall and contained 77,000 cubic feet of helium when inflated. And the Atlantic Ocean in September is somewhat more daunting than the Penobscot.

“Ride the Wind” is the story of how Richard Abruzzo and Troy Bradley in the USA balloon started out for Europe and wound up in Morocco. Before anyone starts pulling out Wrongway Corrigan jokes, I challenge you to read the book and decide if you would have done anything differently from this pair of exceptionally able young pilots.

Richard Abruzzo was born with ballooning in his blood. His father, Ben, along with Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman, had taken off from Presque Isle in Double Eagle II on Aug. 11, 1978, and landed in Evreux, France, 137 hours later. That flight, the first successful Atlantic crossing, set a world record for flight duration. Richard wanted to break that record.

Troy Bradley decided at age 13 he would become a balloon pilot. At age 27 he had already been a professional balloonist for 10 years. He was one of the first 10 U.S. pilots to become certified flying the Roziere balloons used in the Chrysler Transatlantic Challenge. Bradley’s dream was to cross the Atlantic in a balloon.

You might guess that this is somewhat different from heading for Paris or Brussels on a friendly 747. The wicker basket of hot-air balloons had become a modern contraption made of Kevlar and other 21st century materials. Weighing in at just 100 pounds, it measured 7 feet long by 4 1/2 feet wide by 4 1/2 feet high. The bunk, on which they took turns sleeping less than four hours a night, was only 20 inches wide. The gondola was full of complicated navigation and communication equipment. If they had good weather, and the generator hung on the outside of the gondola continued to provide power for the navigation equipment, they might not get their feet wet on the way across.

We use the word `hero’ far too often in common speech. However, anyone who heads east from Bangor in September in a craft which basically can control its direction only by changing its altitude, is made of pretty stern stuff.

An additional element of suspense came in the guise of competing weather forecasting groups. The race organizers had retained Meteo Consult of Rotterdam, known as “Dutch Met,” to furnish all contestants with a constant stream of weather information. Abruzzo and Bradley had hired Bob Rice, an experienced meteorologist who had assisted Abruzzo’s father with the Double Eagle II flight. Rice knew specifically what types of weather balloons needed to complete such a flight.

The reader easily understands the importance of weather as the author relates the stories of the German and Dutch balloons. The Germans had to ditch 800 miles east of Newfoundland and after a harrowing rescue found themselves on a tanker headed for Corpus Christi, Texas. The Dutch almost made it to France before being blown back to sea in a violent storm and eventually crashing in the Channel off England. Their rescue was as difficult as the Germans’ had been.

This is a wonderful story about two bright, determined Americans. Unfortunately, the author, Anne Hillerman, and the publisher, Rio Grande Publishing, do not hold up their end of the bargain and do the story justice. Equally troubling is the fact that it is hard to tell who is responsible for which errors.

Obviously the author did a casual job of research when she refers to this paper as the Bangor Times. She also never quite decides whether to call it “Bass Park” or “Bass Field.” Hillerman mentions the help given all the balloonists by “Bangor civic groups,” never bothering to name them. It appears to me that she sat in New Mexico and didn’t bother to research the local area or its people. My personal favorite editorial blunders occurred when someone was given a “peace” of someone’s mind or when something that had happened earlier was referred to as having happened in the “passed.” If that is where the train of American writing and book publishing is heading, I think I’d like to get off.