Cockpits to Baskets
New training program is designed to cater to displaced pilots
During a challenging time for the aviation industry, Rainbow Ryders Hot Air Balloon Co. is offering to train pilots and other professionals in a very different type of aircraft. Rainbow Ryders, an official sponsor of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, is launching a training program aimed at teaching commercial and military pilots how to lead hot-air balloon tours. Rainbow Ryders founder Scott Appelman said the program will last 12 to 16 months, and will leave graduates with the necessary certifications and a guaranteed position at Rainbow Ryders.
“We see a great resource there in the existing industry, if they just want to ... take a look at something a little different,” Appelman said.
The commercial aviation industry has been hit particularly hard by the pandemic and associated travel restrictions. According to the industry advocacy group Airlines for America, passenger volumes on U.S. airlines dropped by more than 90% year over year last spring, and have been slow to recover.
By the start of February, domestic passenger volume remained down 65% compared to the same period last year, and isn’t expected to rebound to 2019 levels until 2023 at the earliest, according to the organization.
“The reality is, aviation has suffered horribly,” said Daryl Williams, an aviation attorney based in Phoenix.
Appelman said the industry’s challenges provide an opportunity for Rainbow Ryders, which has grown quickly in recent years but still found it challenging to identify and train qualified balloonists. He said the program could be a way to help the company grow while giving pilots looking to leave the commercial aviation industry a chance to stay in the air.
Participants would learn the specifics of piloting and maintaining a hot-air balloon, along with more subtle skills like leading tours and answering questions from guests. He said being an entertainer and communicator is nearly as important as the nuts and bolts of guiding a balloon.
“Every time you go up and fly these people, you’re creating memories for them,” Appelman said.
Participants will receive a stipend, but Appelman said they will be expected to pay for propane and damages done to the balloon. Participants will earn a commercial hot-air balloon license and have a guaranteed job at Rainbow Ryders with a two-year commitment, Appelman said.
“We take good care of our people, because we need to be
able to trust them,” he said.
Balloonists can expect to make between $60,000 and $100,000 annually, with benefits, he said. By comparison, the median annual wage for commercial pilots was $86,080 as of 2019, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Appelman added that working as a balloonist also offers quality of life benefits like not having to travel from city to city.
Williams, a pilot, said he sees significant differences between flying a hot-air balloon and flying a commercial airplane. Balloonists will have to get used to having much less control over their craft and traveling a much shorter distance.
“I am anxious to see if that’s a successful transition,” Williams said.
Still, Appelman said there are certain skills, including monitoring weather conditions, that will feel familiar, even if they have to modify their approaches.
“(Secession is) just a response to the lack of respect toward southeast New Mexico.”
— Sen. Cliff Pirtle, R-Roswell
“If you like Texas better, just pack up your bags and move, it’s not that far.” — Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque
While it’s easy to dismiss a secession measure introduced by state Sen. Cliff Pirtle as silly, doing so would only ignore — and feed — the deep political and cultural divisions that exist in our state.
New Mexico has always had a rural-urban political divide. Lawmakers from Albuquerque’s metro area combined with legislators in the nearby seat of government in Santa Fe are usually able to carry the day when the votes are tabulated in the Roundhouse. And with others they are working on an ambitious and progressive agenda.
In recent years, months and even days, the divisions between oil-producing southeast New Mexico and urban New Mexico have deepened with the passage of gun restriction laws, the imposition of business and school closures due to the pandemic, and perceived threats to the oil industry. Pirtle says proposals introduced this year to ban animal trapping on public lands and restrict pesticide use are a “direct attack” on N.M.’s rural way of life.
That’s not a new concern. But until last week, no state lawmaker had introduced a secession measure, according to research conducted for the Journal by senior legislative librarian Joanne Vandestreek. We made it through 109 years of statehood before hitting this point.
Pirtle’s Senate Joint Resolution 15 would allow New Mexicans to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment paving the path for counties to secede. Counties would have to first launch an effort to formally disengage from New Mexico through a unanimous vote of county commissioners or a voter petition drive.
That does not seem out of the realm of possibility given the recent tensions between county commissions in southeast New Mexico and Santa Fe. Roswell Mayor Dennis Kintigh says leaders in Chaves, Eddy and Lea counties feel “rejected, unvalued and disrespected.”
Under Pirtle’s bill, at least three contiguous counties would have to be in favor of leaving, and in the case of counties wanting to join another state, at least one of the three would have to border the neighboring state.
The proposed constitutional amendment would require ratification from Congress, in addition to approval from N.M. voters, both houses of the state Legislature and any neighboring state the N.M. counties want to join. In other words, it has little chance — although numerous Virginian counties were able to secede and form West Virginia in 1863.
Pirtle acknowledges his proposal is at least partly intended to send a message, but others say it’s a childish tantrum that only adds to the existing divisions. Senate President Pro Tem Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, embodied that viewpoint when she said she doubted any New Mexico county would actually pursue secession.
The relationship between “Little Texas” in southeast New Mexico and the rest of the state is akin to a bad relationship, with one party expressing a desire to leave and the other saying “You’re not going anywhere.” If it were a marriage — it essentially is — we’d need counseling.
Stewart’s smart aleck remark to “pack up your bags and move” was insensitive and shortsighted. We expect better from a career educator and certainly the Senate’s new leader. And Pirtle’s bill is grandstanding at its worse, like a child stomping his feet in frustration.
But it can not be dismissed out of hand. Not considering where we are today. The Legislature and especially the Senate are supposed to be deliberative bodies where the people’s voices are heard. Is New Mexico still a state that takes pride in its diversity of cultures and opinions?
Or one that tells folks who speak up “there’s the door?”
COVID-19 HAS made all of us a little crazy. Quarantines, business closings, kids and teachers at home attempting to do virtual learning have all been hard. Demonstrators on both the right and left are out in force . ... Our political leaders are human, and in this very difficult time they are making things up as they go along. We shouldn’t expect their decisions to be perfect.
We and our leaders, however, need to have empathy for all those people who have been laid off, or had their businesses shut down and who are scrambling to survive, to pay their rent and food bills. We need to go as easy as possible on these people and not view them as “evil” if they break new rules as they attempt to make a living.
Wearing masks, social distancing and hand-washing were the best things to do during the Spanish Flu 100 years ago, and until we’re all vaccinated, they are the best things to do today. In the meantime, I will try to follow the advice in a sign I saw at a local school that simply said “Dude, be kind.”
JOSEPH R. WOODWORTH Albuquerque