Balloon Fiesta; Balloon Fiesta 14

You're off my death lab with Wes? Yeah, for a minute, there's a lot of risk for it. Really? Yeah. Because it's nice right here, but it's just being... It's just funneling me out here. Can you hear it? Is it bothering you? Do you want to move? It doesn't bother me. Should we shut the door for you? See? He's lunged to accommodate me. No, I'm just pilot babysitter. That's my job. Top texting. We're working here. Come on. You're doing fantastic. So how do you two work together as a team? Well, actually, what I want to say is I respect Bob a lot and I've been around Bob in the last couple of years and really learned to watch the bees, but on the same point, I've learned to respect him enough to really listen to what he has to say. You know, newly special shaped pilot, we've recently purchased the clown balloon. So Bob has really helped me out with the special shaped world, you know, because it really is a different world as a pilot. So when we start looking at flying the bees together, he sort of sent me down and talking to me.

There's a lot more that goes into a special shape than just flying it. So in that same point, I've really learned to respect Bob and listen to what he has to say and learn from him. And there's things that go into a special shape or what exactly? What's the choreographing? It's the teamwork, which I wasn't used to previously. It's the inflating together. It's the taking off together, it's the turning of the balloons, the kissing. So there's a lot more that goes into its landing together. Typically, we have one chase crew, one vehicle. So when we take off together, we usually want to land together so we can pile all the envelope and the baskets into one chase crew. So you two really do try to do your entire flight, very synchronized. This whole team is designed in such a way that it's mandatory that we fly together. I mean, he's right, we normally chase with one vehicle here in Albuquerque. It's a little bit different for us, but generally we have one vehicle, which means we land together.

We pack up together, we load together and we go back and we refuel together. So we're a team from the moment we hit the field to the moment we hit the breakfast table and when I'm looking for a pilot and we don't have that many pilots that have flown the bees because as I mentioned before, the idea of flying a balloon is you want to launch and separate from other balloons. You don't want to have to have them influence your flight. With the bees, we influence each other's flight on purpose, yeah. I mean, the goal is to stay together, the goal is to fly together, the goal is to land together and when we do that, we automatically create our performance and I get a kick out of it and you haven't had a chance to hear that yet, hear this yet, but when we're at a balloon festival, at other balloon festivals when Todd has just been in his own balloon, we'll have people say, son, kiss balloon, where are you? I'm over here by the white water tower.

Do you see the bees? And then invariably, the crew person will say, yes, I see the bees, aren't they cute? They're kissing. Well, yeah, anyway, I'm just to the right of them, so we're actually used as landmarks for other pilots to get their crews to see where we're at because we're very visible and people are watching us anyway, so sometimes chase crews are watching us and not following their own balloons. This is why when I was flying my own balloon, I've used the bees as landmarks and even watching them, you know, even back home with another pilot, I've practiced flying together. It's not easy. It's a very difficult task for a pilot to stay with another balloon because as you rise into different elevations, there's different level of wind, so it really takes a lot of skill to be able to be in the same levels of the different directions of wind. If you go up on 100 feet, it may be coming out of itself, you go up the 200 feet and maybe coming out of the southwest.

So once you get those different directions, those bees will switch, so it really comes into a lot of experience and piloting when you get in those different levels. If they don't want to say about being able to pilot together, I think it goes beyond piloting. It goes beyond off the field. We have to be able to be friends and be able to talk to each other off the field to be able to pilot the balloons together. It's like any, you know, I hate to say it in a way of a marriage and a team being able to be a team. I can't be mad at him when I take off because you get your own ideas and you know, when you take off, I got to be able to respect him. He's able to respect me and be able to choreograph and put on that show. One of the reasons that we chose Todd to fly for us is that Todd's done one flight with us and you can see that he has the same mindset that we have. He shares the same philosophy of flight that we have. And my partner Shane Corrie and I are really the two people that have created the persona

of the bees and it's his and my flying together that have created the ability to really take them anywhere and put this show on. And you know, sometimes Shane is not available to fly and we have to have a backup pilot or I'm not available to fly and we have to have a backup pilot. So we have to look outward, you know, into the blooming community and find people that share the same philosophies of flight that we do. And I'm listening to Todd and realizing that in one flight, you know, or one flight and the last year of watching us fly, he's really picked up on what it is that we're trying to accomplish. And that's why the decision to have Todd fly for us wasn't easy one to make, you know, because it really is a team effort. We have to think the same, we have to fly the same, we have to have similar flying characteristics. We have to be able to look over and non-verbally see what the other balloon is doing and

react to it or not react to it. This is a, you know, if I look over at Joey balloon who's ever flying it, I will say, okay, he's climbing, I need to climb a little bit or he's descending, I need to descend a little bit. And I have to realize that it's his balloon descending and not my balloon climbing. So there's a tremendous amount of concentration. So there are very few pilots that have flown the bees and less than, you know, five of us and yet there are probably 40 or 50 pilots that would step up in a moment's notice and say, I want to do it, I want to do it. But that's not to say that those pilots are not worthy. But at the time that we need a pilot, we look around and we see who's available and that and, you know, I'm really, you know, just listening to him talk. He really has a lot of the fundamentals of what we try to accomplish. You get into a special shape world and you're like, I have the clown. You know, the clown we inflate, we take off, it's kind of like we do a solo show. People love the clown, you know, it's something interesting.

People love to follow it, you know, if you look at birthday parties or anything. People really enjoy that shape, but it kind of wears out after a while. If you've seen the clown for every year, you know, it's like, okay, cool. I've seen the clown. I've got his pen. You know, it's nice to have. You know, but year after year, the bees have this choreographed this show. It's not something you say, oh, I seem to be used to this show. Every year, people come up and say, I don't care if I've seen the bees kiss 30 times. You know, people want to come up and say, you guys going to kiss, you know, you know, you can kiss today. Moon blows. Will you make them kiss? You want, you want to see the bees turn, you want to see them kiss. So it's not only about just just flying and taking up, again, going back to people enjoying the show. And that's really why people enjoy watching the bees fly. It's different than, you know, you look and I, you know, in the Fiesta, you see there's a castle, you see a stagecoats with great shapes. I love the shapes, but even myself, I enjoy seeing the bees fly. You better.

Yeah. I enjoy seeing the bees fly because of the shower. None of those other balloons can do that. This is one of the only, you know, special shapes where they have the two balloons that will do a shelf for you. None lost in the air, 100 feet in the air. For you, it's just the next level you've done, you've learned to be a pilot, you move into special shapes, and now you choreograph, it's just sort of a great idea. It's interesting, yeah, I was trained in Rio Rancho, you know, it's not too far from here. You know, I became a private pilot, and then I became a commercial pilot, you know, I got my own balloon, I used to travel a lot in the Northeast, and that's where I met Bob. Down in New Jersey, quick check is one of the largest festivals around the East Coast, went to St. John, which is not a large festival in East Coast, and actually Bob helped me out on an up in St. John when we did an inflation, and we sort of talked about it afterwards, and then, so for me, the bees, I was just talking to a friend of mine the other day, like, you know, I flew the bees, where do I go from here? And for me, you know, it's, well, there's always going to be something better, you know, the bees are not the pinnacle.

Right now they are, you know, the hottest thing out there, but at one time it was the polar bear, and one time it was the cow, the cow is still a magnificent flying balloon, and still, even though we have the bees and we have two bees, we still compete in popularity here at Bloon Fiesta for the cow. You know, so we're constantly thinking of what is the next level, you know, from the standpoint of being a pilot, you know, you look at sport ballooning, commercial ballooning, corporate ballooning, special shape ballooning, and you can have all kinds of different branches off to that. I think you're pretty damn lucky. I tell you how much y'all is, you know, a lot of it for me, I feel very fortunate growing up, around a festival near my hometown, out in Flint Falls, New York, I feel very fortunate ever since I become a pilot. It was a dream mind since I was a kid, and, you know, a group of mine gave me the ideas of why don't you become a pilot? So I did. And ever since then, you know, my goal was within five years of just being able to be a private pilot.

Well, it's been five years, and I'm flying at Fiesta, the most highly known, you know, a festival in the world, and I'm flying a bee, which I grew up watching. So for me, it's being an educated pilot, but it's also willing to understand that you have more to learn. You always have more to learn. And a special pilot, a special shape pilot, there's always going to be a better shape out there. You know, as time goes on, there's going to be new shapes being built, and there's going to be different people building them, there's going to be different people flying them. There's going to be different shows. I think the bees have created a special shape, which other people have got ideas from. So other people are going to want to create the same thing. So as time goes on, it's all going to get bigger and better. I want to talk to you about this being your first Fiesta. Sure. I can't believe this is your first one, and you're already piloting a bee. Being even. Again, going back to it, it's a dream of mine, but I think a lot of it is being, you know, being a pilot, being able to sit back and learn from other pilots. I'm not to discredit any other pilots, but a lot of times people get their commercial

pilot and they're like, okay, cool, I'm commercial, you know, I know how to fly a balloon. That's not how I tackle this situation. I walk in here thinking, I'm not that educated. So even last night at the moon, the moon, yeah. Even last night at the moon, you know, I feel like I'm a confident pilot, I know how to fly a balloon, but I can still learn from other pilots. I was sitting there last night watching other pilots and flight, learning, how do you do that? You know, how do you do that? You know, that's not different. Oh, look at that system. Some always want to look at other systems, always want to learn how the different systems react to different balloons. So for me, I feel like I'm just in a, you know, this huge crowd of pilots that I can learn from. So being able to come here from New York, I know about the different weather patterns, so when I come here, they're all different. So now I just kind of sit back and I'm like, okay, you know, I know that guy, I know that guy, let me learn from that. So being able to come here and fly at the largest festival, I feel very lucky, I feel

fortunate, but at the same point, it's a learning opportunity for me. And I know you've only had one mass ascension, what's been your favorite Fiesta moment? Well, really my only Fiesta moment, and I don't know how I can overtop it. Yeah, I got to tell you, and I can try to tell you in the best way, you know, we took out, we just starting with the inflation, we inflated it, starting with the first Fiesta, you know, flying the B, Bob came to me with the opportunity, and I felt very fortunate, but inflating the bees at the same time and listening to the crowd, you know, I was very concentrated on what was going on, but at the same point I'm like, wow, I've never gotten that response before. So, and, you know, watching, certainly watching the choreograph, and then we had to turn the bee at one point, we took off together, and as we were taking off, it got ten times louder.

Yeah. Just as I didn't get a delay, louder got ten times louder. And you hear the roar of the burner and your fan is still going, and it's like, wow, is that the crowd behind us? It's almost like, there was no other balloon on the ground at that point, it was like, we were the only ones in the air, which we weren't, but it seemed that way. You know, and certainly watching other people yell and scream, and, you know, you see everyone taking pictures and all the cameras linking up, I felt like that was the number one person on the world at that point. You know, so for me, my favorite Fiesta moment was, you know, Saturday morning, flating Joey, and taking off with Lily, and Joey and Lily, you know. So, when you're setting up the bees, what did you not expect with their inflation? Was there something that you didn't anticipate? I think a lot of it was, I, I watched the bees and flate probably 20 times in my lifetime. I really didn't know how choreographed it really was. Was that it? Damn juts. That's okay, the juts, sorry. Early up there too.

Are you talking about the, the hands at the end when we stopped the launch? Are you talking about that? Were the hands started to come apart or, or? No, I didn't even see that. I was wondering if, if you knew how they've been, if you'd known all the intricacies. I didn't. And that's what I kind of was in the time, wow. Okay. He was just clear to 18,000 gave the last little bit of thrust to get him up there. Okay. Thank you. I think, you know, again, you know, being able to see the balloons have played about 20 times. You know, Bob and I were talking and I said, so what, what really goes into it? And he said, well, it's very easy if you follow the directions and I'm like, okay, and we said, and as he talked about earlier, you watched the, the black fabric and, you know, come up, then you watched yellow fabric come up and one that yellow fabric comes up, we

give each other a thumbs up. And that way we both know that we're ready to hide and flate fully. So we hide and flate and it comes up and it was, it was easier than I thought it was. I thought there was more to it, but before I inflated it, okay, we didn't play balloons. You know, like I said, I've inflated balloons, you know, several times, but this was more of a team effort. And as we took off, it was more watching his burns and then, you know, burning myself and then it coming off together. So when looking back at it, a lot of it was being able to choreograph it and be able to work with another pilot, you know, so intricate together. Other than that, I've never been able to do that, I've never had to do that in other festivals. We've always been able to take it off, even when I'm flowing with other pilots that I've known very well, we've flown together. We've never had to stay that close and done it, it's like, okay, I'll see you when we land, I'll see when we come back, but this was, I'll see you on the ground and I'll see you in the air. And literally, you know, we, we can communicate back and forth in the air just by yelling back and back and forth to each other, so it goes into a lot more detail than I thought

it was. Tell me about the inflation process, like filling the intended wings, what happens first a second third? A lot of it's just a cold inflation, you know, a cold inflation meeting, you know, we start the fans and it just blows the air into it, it inflates the balloon, and a lot of what Bob said, you know, you look right down from the top of the balloon, you look at both of them where the nose is, and so the antennas are already inflated, but really, that's when the body starts coming up and you see that black fabric start to lift, and he told me, and I was kind of surprised how accurate he was, when you start to see that yellow fabric start coming up, and we just start pumping a little bit of hot air and a little bit of hot air and a little bit of hot air, and until that yellow fabric's up, I'm both balloons. That way those balloons are about a quarter inflated already, so we look back and forth to each other and we give each other thumbs up, both balloons are ready, and we both hit the burners pretty much the same time, and we bring them up right together at the same time.

We both pretty much jump in the basket at the same time, so a lot of it is, you know, it seems harder than, but it's kind of easy, but again, it goes back to what Bob said, as long as you follow the directions in which it was meant to be. Well, a lot happens within the balloon without even, you know, trying, I mean, the appendages are made in such a way that there's the body of the balloon, and then you have the appendages like the arm, and you actually, there's a curtain in there, and there's a port hole that allows the air to migrate in, so as the fan is pumping air in, the pressure is building, and it's inflating the arms and the legs, and so by the time we add the heat and the heat expands inside, because it's warmer, it literally pressurizes all of the appendages, so that the balloon is almost fully erect and inflated when it stands up. And so when do those hands in place? Well, they inflate through the entire process, and actually the hands inflate very quickly because they're in the center of the body, and as the center of the body comes up, they, the port holes become exposed to open air, which allows the fan to push air out into

them. The legs take a little bit more work. They're down a little bit lower, and so that's a part of the balloon that inflates later, and down lower on the body of the beam. The balloon, the body of the beam is actually, if you look at it, the front is fairly flat, but the back end sticks out a lot, and then the head is right above it, and so this allows for the air to migrate into the arms first, and the legs second, arms and wings first. I want to go back to you when you're first Fiesta, so when did you find out you were coming to Fiesta? Well, actually, I had booked a while back for Fiesta. This was something a group of guys back home, and I decided we want to go to the largest balloon festival in the world. Well, like I said, we traveled around the East Coast, and we've been some of the largest balloon festivals, but there was an opportunity that I found out about that Bob needed to be pilot, and so you're knowing him from some of the East Coast pilot. I called him and said, hey, I'd love to find the beam.

You know, really just kind of putting it out there, and he said, well, let me think about it, and I give you a call back. I'm sure he got hundreds of calls, like he said, it's the most popular bees around, and then he called me back and said, you know, we like your way of thinking, we like, you know, your input on everything, you know, would you mind finding the bees? I was kind of like, yeah, and he goes, well, you don't stop too excited. I was like, well, I had to stand up. Why'd you call me? Why did you call me? So, you know, I was very fortunate to be able to talk to Bob and know him previously, and he knew kind of my outlook. I'm outside of my hip, hip, hip, you know. I'd like us to have, you know, he called everybody to do. I looked over and he was like, dude, I'm flying, you know, I'm flying a little bee at Bloomfield stuff. You know, I had my brother tape the inflation, and there's a website that we can post videos on, all the balloons around. I did that the day I had to inflate Joey, so I went back and put it on there, and so all my friends and family got to see it, and they know that I'm here, and I'm inflating,

and Joey, and flying a bee, and, you know, it's not something where I'd call home and say, yeah, I'm inflating my balloon, if yes, this is so great. I'm totally second fiddle now with all of his friends. So, yeah, even a friend of mine after the flight said, God was watching on KOB.com. You know, we got to see the whole inflation and everything, you know, so he was happy for him, and he was like, we saw the whole flight and, you know, congratulations, so even my friends know how happy I am to be able to have this experience. I want you to, I'm not going to do that as shoes. Let me take one off. Let me actually take it off and show it. Sure, well, we, you know, when we first started flying the bees, we wanted to look like bees, you know, we wanted the team as they're scurrying around, putting the balloon together. We wanted them to look like bees, and so we created these shirts, we got them custom-made,

and they had the exact same stripe pattern, but we wanted to take a little step closer, and we found that you could actually go online, and you could create your own shoe. And so Todd, of course, has not gotten to the shoe point yet, but you can go online and you can create your shoe, and then you can even personalize them with your name on the back. So the crew people that have shoes have their name on the back, so, you know, you can look down and see who's, who's, who's crewing, but everybody's kind of got a little name. My name, Bebob is something that my aunt called me all the way back to when I was really little, so it, it just kind of stuck with me, and when I got the bees, it was just a natural moniker for me to have. So we haven't kind of figured out what you are yet, Todd Bee, Monahan Bee, I don't know why. Yeah, we got to come up with a name for Todd, but, and this is the detail that I talk about, you know, he really is a show, I mean, a lot of people wouldn't think about a shoe, but you know how many people would come up and say, oh my God, look at the bee shoe, you know,

they love it. You know, hey, how many people want that, you know, I remember being down in New Jersey and they actually got a bee shoe for one of the organized, and he was so happy, you know, people really do it, they enjoy the small things, like that the bee cards, the bee pens as you can see, Bob's wearing a bee pen and, and that's an actual special pen that he's wearing, that I'll, I'll let him tell you about, but, you know, even going into that, there's so much detail that goes into this, that normally wouldn't go in with the regular special scene. And what are some of the names of people that have the shoes? Well, we have Bee Mark, who's one of our pilots, and we also have a couple of crew people named Bee Mark. Karen. Yeah, but I don't know that Karen really has a, she's got the haul, her shoe just says Karen, Karen is our, I mean, when you, you got to meet Karen, she is, she has totally decked out little bee, I mean, you know, I got shoes and a shirt, she has bees hanging from her belt, she has, she wears a bee backpack, she's got those little, I think she has a bee fanny bag, she has several, she wears like six bee fanny packs, and each one has

like different little bees hanging off all over, and we have bees all over the dashboard of different things that she's given us, she, she has those little things that you can put in your buttonholes that are bees, so it looks like she has bees on her, she's got embroidered jackets, and I mean, and just, yeah, you look over and you see this solid yellow and black thing walking around, but, you know, we have very little apparel really, because most of our festivals are done in the summer, so, you know, our little bee t-shirts and our little bee polo shirts, you did that circle over, yeah, I'm telling you, it's us, we don't really need very much bee apparel, I mean, our shirts really do make a big

statement for us, and so, we limited to our, to our shirts, we do have some crew shirts that have the little bees on the front and on the back, we had a, we did a t-shirt one year that had the burning love tour, you know, because hot air balloons burn and the bees love each other, so we did a little rock concert schedule on the back of all the cities we were going to be in, so, we have a lot of those running around the different parts of the country, but the bee t-shirt or bee polo shirts pretty much, that's our uniform, and it's really about all we wear, and it makes a nice statement, like I said, when you got about 12, 13 of us rolling around out here, looks kind of fun, you know, I have some pilots wear, you know, hats and gloves, all kinds of other things, so we don't have a lot of, I just didn't want to jump suit, you know, it's funny, because when I got involved in ballooning in the early 80s, everybody wore these jumpsuits, if you had a, a predominantly red jumpsuit, or a balloon you wore a red jumpsuit, if you had a predominantly blue balloon you wore a blue jumpsuit, and then the idea was to put all these patches and have a hat

like this high with, with balloon pins all over and everything, you know, and so we're kind of like, well, let's scale it down a little bit, but then, then you got to got to bring it back up a notch, you know, nice, nice, you know, especially designed shirt with the B pattern on it, you know, shoes, maybe a belt, you know, something like that, but, you know, not over the top with a jumpsuit, you know, couldn't do that, although I thought about maybe getting you a jumpsuit, yeah, I thought about you, I thought about your pins. This pin that I'm wearing is a very special pin for us, and for those that know us, those people that know us, we have designed 50 or so pins now, boys and they lapel pins like this one, and for festivals or for different personas that the balloons take on, you know, kissing and hugging and holding hands and maybe it'll say balloon fiesta, maybe it'll say New Jersey Festival, ballooning or wherever we're at, but we do, we do rent

our balloons out to balloon festivals, that's how we make money, we're not sponsored, we're not rich, and so the pins are away for us to offset the cost of keeping our balloons flying, and so we decided to give some of that back, and we created this pin, it has Joanne Lily, who are holding on to a pink ribbon, and this year, throughout 2008, Joanne Lily are also supporting a pink ribbon on their chest, and the idea is that we're supporting the National Breast Cancer Foundation, October, balloon fiesta, is national, is breast cancer awareness month, and so we have designed this pin with it in mind that for every pin that we sell, we donate $10 to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, and the reason we like them is because they provide free breast cancer screening and other medical attention and help to women who otherwise can't afford it, and so it's something that's

near and dear to a lot of people's hearts, and it's just a way for Joanne Lily to sort of give back in some way to the community that has really made us who we are. And again, go back to the decal, you know, if you watch, you know, Joanne Lily and play, you're going to see that ribbon, and that's something that's huge, you know, and again, not that this credit anyone else, but there's a lot of special shapes you see in flying and everything. The bee is being one of the most popular shapes around, you know, they go through the details of the shoes, but not only they think about the bees and the crowd, they think about other people, you know, they're willing to get back to other people, you know, and for me, you know, when not only is he's asking me to fly, but for me to join a team, that's something that I think about, you know, something that I do in my own personal business, I give him back 1% to a local fund, you know, where I know where the money's going, and that's something he's going to do too, and so for me wanting to be a part of a team, that's something I look for as well. I'm going to jump back just a bit. What is your personal flying philosophy?

You mentioned that earlier when she's seeing the fly with you? Well, as far as flying philosophy of a pilot, a pilot has to be a professional, you know, we're on a stage without curtains, and the audience is standing next to us, so we have to be a professional, we have to be courteous. Regardless of what we're going through at the time, whether we're worried about the winds, we're worried about the launch, you have to smile and hand somebody a car to trading car, and when you've been asked the same question a hundred times, answer it, you know, and so there's a level of professionalism that you look for in a pilot. We all think about safety, when you're in any sport, especially flying, and there has to be an extreme level of safety conscience, you know, it's what is your decision-making process. This is, we work as a team, I don't make up, I'm the chief pilot, I don't make up our mind, we make up our mind together, we talk about the flight, we talk about the winds,

we talk about how we're going to get this flight accomplished, we visualize our takeoff, our flight, and our landing before we leave. This is something that I have to know that the pilot shares with me, he has to have this philosophy, this mechanism, in his mind already of how to understand what it is that we need to accomplish. We're also not out here to grandstand, one of us is not any better than the other, and so pilots have egos, I mean, I have an ego, you can see it's 110 feet tall and it looks like Joey and Lily, that's my ego, but my ego is the team as well, and I have to be conscious of that. In reality ever will you ever see one bee in the air, and if you do, normally it's because there isn't a pilot, they've had to go some results, or if he's had, you know, promised some people some rides, he'll go out and take Lily out, or vice versa, but really ever again will you ever see, you know, one bee in flight and one bee not, it's never because, you know, given the example last night, the moon's low, it was a little windy, you know,

I went to Bob's, you know, what are you thinking, he goes, you know, I don't know, what do you think, you know, and not, you know, normally you may not get that, you may say it was especially corporate, they may come to you and say we want that shape in the air, we want that balloon in the air, so and I went to Bob and I said, you know, what do you think? He goes, well, I don't know, what do you think, you know, so I gave him my, you know, what I thought, and he said, well, this is what I think, and he says, so what do we want to do? And so we made the decision together, you know, so in that, go back to that's a team aspect of this. And some of the things that I'm thinking about, too, that, you know, that I might not share is, is the thing when you have a balloon with arms and feet and tennis, you also have to think about them going like this in the wind and, you know, is that the, is that the appearance that we want? Because oftentimes people don't understand what's going on, you look at a standard shape balloon and it's wobbling around in the wind, that's one thing, but when the, you know, when the head's going like this and the arms are going like that in a feeder bob and up and down, you know, we're constantly concerned with what's going on and, and it might

not, you know, be the show that we're trying to put on, but, you don't have a chance, crazy B, crazy B, what's crazy B, oh, crazy B, baby, that's a new shade, big wide eyes, you know. What's your favorite festival that you've had? Personal, oh gosh, wow, how many years you got here now? How old are you? I, I have hundreds of special Fiesta moments. I, I did my first balloon Fiesta in 1986 and at the time I was flying a corporate balloon for AT&T and I was fortunate enough to win the key grab that year, I won an 87 Pontiac Fierro, it's very tough to beat that, since then I've had numerous occasions of winning prizes, including other pull grabs that were money grabbing the little balloons that they stick money in, and I've competed and placed in the top 10 on several occasions

throughout, throughout the 27 years of flying here, and I have several first place medals as far as on a daily basis, but take the cars, take the money, take the trophies, and give me the family that I've created here, give me the crew that has been with me since 1986, give me the kids that have been born into the family that are now out here running around in their little b-shirts, you know, give me my kids who are grown up and are young adults now that come out with me, and the friends that I have, have, have amassed in my fortunate years of traveling all around the country and ballooning, and, and put them in one place at Fiesta, where we have the love of ballooning, the love of, of social activity and hanging out and tailgating for hours afterwards, to the point where we're just physically exhausted and sunburned, those are my special moments, those are the things that I'll

remember, you know, when my son turned 16 and my local crew, you know, sort of initiated him into, into young adulthood, you know, I mean, those are my special moments, at the end flying in the river and, you know, flying with as many as a thousand balloons in the year 2000, being part of the first balloon glow here, competing, participating in 11 special shape rodeos, I mean, there's just hundreds of special moments here, and that's why we come back, year after year after year, and we have our little restaurants that we go to, you know, we got to go to that restaurant, we got to go to that restaurant, that's why we come back here. What did I say after, that's why we came back here after year, but we have, we have all these, we have hundreds of special shape moments, well,

we have hundreds of special balloon fiesta moments, and those are the reasons that we really come back year after year after year, and, and you know what sort of makes, I mean, for many reasons, balloon fiesta is special, but it's, it's the pinnacle of the summer. We start, we start our balloon festivals schedule in June, and we end in October with the balloon fiesta. This is, you know, it's the balloon's convention, it's the big get together, it's the, the huge thing at the end of the season that, that says we did all these balloon festivals, we had a lot of fun, now we're here, have fun, and then go home and put it to bed for the winter and start all over next summer, with the anticipation that balloon fiestas, you know, the last one we're going to do for the summer. Is there anything optimistic, I think I should, I should know that you want to save from go? I guess what I, I don't know, you're pretty long winded dude, I know. I guess one of the things I really want to say is, for me ballooning, he's, he's been able to really allow

me to go all over the country, you know, here I am in Albuquerque New Mexico, I'm from New York, I've been in Jersey, St. John, I've gone all around New York to a couple different levels, I've met some of the greatest people I could ever come in contact with in, in all different ages, and I normally wouldn't have hang out, you know, hung out with some of those people, if it wasn't for ballooning, you know, I have my twin brothers here with me today, I have a good friend of mine who's here is actually helping one of the other shaped Bob has is Ladybug, but you know this morning we get a look at together, and you know, I had a good friend of mine from Connecticut, I had a good friend from Jersey, from Pennsylvania, a couple of friends from New York, and I've met a whole bunch of people from, again, California, Albuquerque, that have come in and say, you know, hey, Tom, what's up? And, you know, they wouldn't know me for, from Adam, you know, to be able to come in one central location, from really all over the world, you know, we saw Benoit last night, you know, who has the Darth Vader, Darth Vader, you know, how would I ever come in contact

with someone like that? So really the balloons have allowed me to meet, people from all over the world, and not only that, but people who have, you know, come and enjoy my company as well as I enjoy theirs. So for me, ballooning is being able to travel the world and meeting some of the greatest people that I know. Well, seeing you can take that one step further because Joey and Lily have been able to travel the world, you know, and we've been to New Zealand and Australia and Japan, and we've flown in, you know, all over the United States, we've flown all over Canada, and you know, we get the same thing, people love them, and we do, we make friends, we make friends everywhere, and you've met one family in ballooning, and, you know, that's kind of what ballooning has come. There's their second and third generation balloonist now that are part of this sort of culture that we run into, whether we're in New Jersey or whether we're in San Diego or whether we're in Texas or Seattle or St. John's Service or you're in Canada or Bloon Fiesta. These first, second, third generation families

in ballooning are there with us, and we really enjoy that. We really enjoy looking up in the sky and saying, oh, I saw that kid on a front of a Chase truck in Boone Fiesta in 1986, you know, and now look at him. He's third, you know, almost third overall for this year's ballooning Fiesta in competition, and it really makes you proud. I have a, that's just, maybe the question I have, why does ballooning have so many generational people? I've never seen so many families that just stay in it. That's a good question. You know, when looking at it, I think it is, I think it's, you know, when looking at the family aspect, you know, you know, I just spent a lot of time, a lot of families with my regular job, but families want to share that. I think it is, you know, it bobs on the road a lot, you know, as myself, you know, we go all over the country, so you want to bring your family. You want to share this with other people. So not only are we a ballooning family, but we have

our own nuclear families that we want to share this with them. You know, talking, maybe for us some other pilots, but for myself, you know, there's nothing like being able to be in the air and watching hundreds of other balloons, also with you, and also, you know, like this morning, you know, cooking lunch, you know, or breakfast, whatever you want to call it, with people you don't even know really, and introducing yourself to them and be able to see what, you know, what it's like in different parts of the country. You know, that's something you're never exposed to if you live in one central location. So this, as far as I'm concerned, for families, this is a unique situation that we're blessed with and we're able to share this with some of our blood family, if not friends. And, you know, there's kind of a few more aspects that I've been able to experience in my ten years as a balloon pilot and raising my kids and ballooning. I quit my real job in 1986 to, you know, to do this full time. And at that particular time, we started traveling

around with a corporate balloon and we realized that there were other people like ourselves that were traveling around with their corporate balloons and we at the time my son was just a few years old and we started making friends with other families that were traveling with corporate balloons that had children or were about to have children. And we watched our families grow together and the one thing that ballooning is that's different from other sports. Now I'm not talking professional sports. But boating or fishing is that we're sort of in the public view. And so there's a little bit of a notoriety that you build and people sort of absorb that, if you will. I remember one time we were at a balloon festival and my son was four years old, he was on my back and we were just swimming through the pool and these people started coming to the pool and getting in and they started

talking and they were talking about different things and my son touched me on the shoulder and he says dad tell him you're a balloonist. And I realized at that moment that my son really, really thought of ballooning as extra special. And my oldest son now, excuse me, my youngest son, Erin is now in high school and the other day he shared a little story with me and I don't know what class it was but the teacher said how many of you have flown in an airplane in half the class raised their hand. How many of you have been in a boat, you know, in three quarters of the class raised their hand and how many of you have ridden in a sports car, you know, there's a couple raised their hand and knowing that Erin was in the classroom, he said how many of you have flown in a hot air balloon? My son looked around, raised his hand and realized that he was the only one. And you know, so it's that individuality that you get from the sport. And yet it's also the excitement of flying. How many of us have taken our hand and held them out of the window, you know, and through the wind,

you know, raised our hand and let it fly up above the trees and down into the valleys. And I did that as a young kid and I realized that's what I'm doing in my balloon. You know, I've heard pilots talk about, you know, flying over the trees and dropping down in the river here, balloon fiesta. That's what we do. And we get to experience all those little things. And so I believe that our children experience this and they, they watch us do it. And they say, I want to be a balloon pilot just like my father. Only I want to be just a little bit better. You know, I want to win the balloon fiesta. I want to skim, do the splash dash for just a little bit longer. I want to do the box at balloon fiesta. You know, like, like I watched my mother and my father do. And, and before too long, it's, you know, their child is doing the same thing. So we've got it. We're fortunate in Arizona to have several third generation balloon pilots booning out here in the west has been going for quite a while. So you mentioned your crew as being part of your extended family. Can you just rattle off a roster?

You know, we have here in Albuquerque, Wade Thornhill and his brother Tommy Thornhill and their twin towers, the other a lot bigger than these guys. You know, their wives and their kids and, you know, out east, we have, we have two sisters that crew for us. Christian, Chris and Ashley, they, you know, they travel around with us in places. We have, you know, folks in, in Arizona, you know, that, that have not only been Kathy and Gary are, are two people that are very instrumental in, in, in, in first crewing for us. And then, and then learning to fly. I was fortunate enough to, to build a balloon for Gary. I told him, I said, you know, you never have to have a balloon because as long as I have a balloon, you have something to fly. And then one day I said, I want to, I want to build you a balloon. And so we got together and we built the balloon. That balloon is flying here with Daniel, this year at Bloon Fiesta for his first balloon Fiesta. So the extended family is not necessarily

just mine, but it's that of my extended family has an extended family who has an extended family, who has people like Scott and Todd Monahan who come out here from Bloons Falls, New York, you know. It's funny because the balloon has a family. I mean, if you sell your balloon to somebody, you're like, oh yeah, you know, I flew that balloon so long, and then you meet the pilot, and then you two talk about the different experiences you have in that balloon. And then they may sell that balloon to someone else. And then the three, you have something to share. And then people will come up to you on Bloon Fiesta Park five years later and go, I used to own that balloon. What's your name? Because I can see it in the log book, you know. And, you know, uh, it's funny not only do, I was pilots have families, but the balloon kind of carries a family with it. You know, and I can't tell every time it's been, you know, I have another balloon. I don't have here and I had someone come up to me today. Hey, he used to own someone, someone's balloon. You know, so it's not even, they may not even know who you are, but they know what balloon you're flying and they say, you own someone says, and oh, really, what was he like? Oh, you know,

so they start talking about this person. So a balloon does carry, you know, a story with it. And you built balloons for people. Wasn't like seeing balloons take on the Fiesta Yoga. Tell me about that. Well, one of one of the other aspects of my career in ballooning is that I'm an FA certified repairman. And what that means is that on a yearly basis, I inspect people's balloons and keep them in compliance with FA regulations to keep them safe and make sure that they, that they comply with the original manufacturer's design. What goes along with that is that I'm, I'm also a distributor for a camera balloons. And so I've, I've helped people design their balloons and buy their first balloons and buy their second and third and fourth. And in some cases for ride operators, you know, not only buy a small balloon, but a balloon that will carry 15 and 16 passengers. But I've also been able to be involved in restoring the restoration of old balloons. And I live in Phoenix, Arizona. So I like to call these Phoenix balloons because they,

they rise from the, the, the dead carcass of an old balloon. And what we've been able to do, working within FA regulations is to go through and do a body off restoration, just like a car, where they take the car apart and they, they replace all of the individual parts that have worn out. We've done that with balloons. And so we've been able to take a balloon that had a beautiful life flying for 10 or 15 years, maybe here in Albuquerque was sold sat on a shelf. And then somebody said, Hey, I want a balloon stripped out all the fabric and put in all new fabric. And suddenly, it's a whole new one. And I, I do, I, I get a tremendous amount of pride when I look on balloon Fiesta Park. And I look up and I say, I built that balloon. I built that balloon in the, in the front room of, of an apartment that I was living in in Aspen, Colorado, when I was flying up there for the summer. And, you know, I built that one for Kathy and Gary because out of my love, a friendship for them. And, and my friend Michael Glenn, who's a paraplegic and he is the only licensed paraplegic in the United States. And I built him a balloon last year when,

the previous year at balloon Fiesta, his balloon was stolen. And so there's a tremendous amount of pride that I have looking up and seeing these balloons fly across the sky. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, talk about karma. Thank you. Yeah. You know, I saw it. It doesn't even have a painted on his trailer. Yeah. And I said, I said, that used to be Mike Liberty's ballooning. How do you know? It's like, well, there's not a whole lot of them. And I looked down and said, Colorado plates is like, wow, it lives in Colorado now. You know, yeah. Well, I noticed it in the air. And I thought, no, that was the looks of this a little bit newer. Yeah. So I've been able to take a tremendous amount of pride. Okay. I've been able to, you know, have a tremendous amount of pride when I look up and I see the

different balloons that I've built. Not necessarily built, but restored, I guess is a better way of putting it because I'm not a balloon manufacturer. I'm not a balloon manufacturer or builder. I'm, I'm a restorer if you will. And, you know, I'm proud to, to see Michael Glenn in the air who flies a balloon that I restored for him a couple years ago after he had his balloon stolen here at Bloon Fiesta. And Michael is the only paraplegic licensed balloon pilot in the United States. And so he has a custom made chariot style basket and gondola, if you will. And, and his brother bought a one of my first balloons that I put together. And now his father flies that here in Fiesta. So, you know, there's another family out of Roswell, New Mexico. Bill Glenn has been flying for, you know, many, many years. I don't even know how many years, but he brought his two kids up and now they're ballooning. And they all competed here. Chris Glenn took a truck home a few years ago. And, uh, watched his father get a, a pole grab the same year with some, some money on it. So,

it's quite, quite, quite fun and exciting to see your balloons flying, realizing the people who are flying them. And, um, you know, the history that has brought them to that point where they're flying one of your balloons. You hear stories like this and you wonder why more people are involved? I mean, I, I don't know how many is in like almost 700 pilots across. Well, how, how many times? Yeah, I mean, you know, there used to be more pilots and uh, ballooning is a little bit of a decline. But, uh, how many times have you had somebody say, you know, how much is a balloon cost? And, uh, or how much is a ride cost? And I always say, well, your first ride is not the expensive one. It's the second. The first one caught you 200 bucks, the second one caught you 20,000. Because that's when you buy a balloon and you learn to fly it. He started traveling with us and then you meet up with the likes of us and you get hooked. You get hooked, yeah. Come ballooning ticks. There you go. I like to call us balloonists, but I guess we're ballooning ticks. We're not ballooners, though. We don't like that one.

You know, do you have any questions on your mind, though? Anything else you guys think I've missed? You really did talk a lot. It's great. Wait too much, huh? No. Oh, it looks so just present. Okay. Okay. Okay. You guys have any big parties coming up? You've got special shapes party. You ready for that? When is that one? When's the night's a special shapes party? Yeah. Um, it's kind of fun. It's like a ball. It's like a special shaped ball. You know, we, we actually dress up. We don't come out here in our t-shirts in our polo shirts. I hope you brought something to wear. As you said, you got that costume for me. Oh, that's right. We got the bee costume. You haven't seen the bee costume. Oh, this is all the killer bee costume was created by one of our, um, our crew chiefs out of Tucson who comes here every year and he used to walk around as a gorilla suit. Nobody knew who he was. We buy the bees and he decides to throw away the gorilla costume and create

this little bee costume, a killer bee costume. It was a hornet. He had on a black leotard and a black shirt, big huge inflated puffy hornets tail behind him. And this helmet, yellow spray paint and helmets has killer be on the side with these, um, 10 as a come out of the top of these screen meshes. He puts over his face and everything. And we would hand him trading cards and he would stand out and people, you know, it's like, good, just give the trading cards to Joe. He'll get the killer bee costume. See more people are more excited about than you. Yeah. And you know, it's funny because everybody's out there taking their picture to him. And one day I went and I searched out little bees on flicker dot com, you know, everybody posts all their pictures. And all of a sudden I see at least hundreds of pictures that people have posted with Joe, you know, with their arm around him and that. So, uh, so we should put you in the killer bee costume. Oh, my God. Yeah, I have really got one for you. We got to dig that out of the chase command and bring it out to one of the balloon gloves because it's kind of fun. I really haven't given you the rookie

list of things that you have to do yet. You know, besides washing the chase commander and keeping all the windows clean, you also have to change the oil and rotate the tires and don't forget to dump the RV septic tank. That's very, very important that it gets really bad going down the road. I don't know. Can't wait. You talk about your shoes like take it off and hold it like you did before. You want me to start right from the beginning? Do you want me to say how where I got it? I mean, obviously, the logos on there. Does it matter to say who I got it or? Oh, okay. Okay. Be bulb. Be bulb. So, I can see that the back of it. So, if you point out the shoe towards me. So, I can read the box. I'll call it. And, uh, okay. Now, we can get inside. I'd love the shoe. Even the bottom.

So, you designed that online? Yeah, rbkcustom.com. You can go and, uh, and, uh, design your own shoes. We got to come up with yellow and black ones now for the ladybug. Okay. Yeah, because I think I hit my microphone at the same time, too. Thank you. Thank you. Well, you got too long when you do it.

This is good.