Winds delay hot air balloons
But large crowds still turned out for the festival.
High winds played havoc with the opening day activities at the inaugural Rome Hot Air Balloon Festival Friday.
Sustained winds prevented pilots from even inflating their balloon envelopes for hours. Steven Stokoe, from Tampa, Florida, said the winds were running from 11-17 knots.
“Usually we like them at around 5 knots,” Stokoe said.
Winds have been a frequent problem at festivals across the country this year. He has been piloting balloons for about 33 years.
“No two flights are the same. When we fly around the country it’s all new to us because we may take off from the same point but then we have to find someplace to land,” Stokoe said. “The faster the wind the bigger the field it needs to be, the slower it is the smaller we can get into.”
Stokoe explained that balloon pilots are able to steer the balloons using the different wind direction at different altitudes. “The instruments haven’t changed a great deal. They’ve gotten more electronics, but the basic instruments are an altimeter and a pyrometer, which tells us the temperature at the top of the balloon, and a variometer which tells us if we’re going up or down,” Stokoe said. “Usually we know before it tells us.”
Charles Edwards from the Fort Myers, Florida, area came to Rome to fly one of organizer John Cavin’s character balloons. He’s been flying balloons since 1973 after purchasing one as a promotional tool for a nightclub.
Weather is easily the biggest challenge to ballooning.
“All of the intricacies of weather like today, we’re not sure how long the wind is going to be here. You spend a lot of time out standing in your field watching the weather,” Edwards said.
The pilots could not even inflate the balloons until they were certain the winds could permit even a static display.
“Then we’ll drag everything off the trucks and hook it up. It’s about a 35-40 minute process,” he said.
While visitors waited on the winds to die down, they were able to visit the Museum of Flight and check out the numerous vintage World War II era aircraft on display.
The Greater Rome Convention and Visitors Bureau also unveiled its new mobile visitors center, a repurposed mini-bus, at the festival. Volunteers from Berry College were assisting the CVB personnel and showing off some of the different T-shirts available at the last Stop Gift Shop on Jackson Hill.
Dozens of arts and crafts as well as food vendors were taking advantage of the weather which was perfect throughout the early evening for everything except inflating and flying balloons.
A steady stream of traffic poured onto the airport grounds throughout the afternoon, hoping the winds would die down so they could see the balloons could rise up.
Visitors to the festival Saturday should enter the airport grounds via Warren Road. The festival will continue Saturday at 1 p.m. with tethered balloon rides, weather permitting, beginning at 4 p.m. and the balloon glow will begin at 8 p.m. The festival closes at 9 p.m.
Entry is $10 with parking at $10. Tethered balloon rides are $20 each. There also family pack tickets (4) for $25.