9-year-old prepares for solo balloon flight

[June 04, 2011]  ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- If all goes as planned, Bobby Bradley will lift off from a desolate patch of central New Mexico shortly after dawn Saturday and float into history.

The 9-year-old son of two of Albuquerque's well-known balloonists hopes to become the youngest trained pilot to fly solo in a hot air balloon.

For the past week and half he has been practicing takeoffs and landing in an ultralight balloon built specifically for his big day.

"He tethered last Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday," said his dad, Troy Bradley, who is one of the local ballooning community's most respected instructors. "So he's got three days of tether in and actually did 50 takeoffs and landings. He was going up to maybe 30 to 40 feet, 40 feet tops. So it was a very controlled situation where we able to get him up and down."

Bradley on Friday afternoon said that the weather forecast was looking perfect for his son's early morning flight and a caravan was being planned from a local hotel parking lot to the site where Bobby will launch his balloon.

Bobby, he said, was "very, very excited."

A week and a half earlier, Bobby watched anxiously as his father tested the new ultralight that was built by family and friends from a larger traditional hot air balloon that he was piloting with his mother, Tami Bradley, and fellow pilot Randy Rogers. His mother said he pleaded with his dad over the radio that day to let him fly it that day.

Bobby has been flying in balloons for more than half his life, with his parents and some of the sports most experienced and decorated pilots. He has nearly 30 hours of flight time with his father in a standard hot air balloon. But he can't get his pilot's license until he's 16, so his family and friends built the smaller balloon that is classified as an ultralight aircraft to enable Saturday's solo flight.

Raymond Bair, a designated balloon examiner for the Federal Aviation Administration in New Mexico, planned to watch Saturday's flight. He said he was not particularly concerned about Bobby's safety because of his extensive training and his father's reputation as an instructor.

"I have worked with a lot of Troy's (his father's) students who have come in to get their certification and find them to be extremely well prepared and confident in all the flight aspects," he said.

Tami Bradley said she is more worried about the little things, like "him needing to go to the bathroom."

Troy and Tami Bradley have been licensed pilots since they were teenagers. He made his first solo flight when he was 14 and earned his license at 16. She earned her license at 17.

The two won the America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race, one of the country's biggest events in balloon racing, in 1998. Troy Bradley also helped pilot the first balloon to fly from North America to Africa and has set dozens of world records in ballooning.

Troy said he expects Bobby will have enough fuel for about a 90-minute flight, but he'll likely fly about 20 to 40 minutes, and his balloon will go wherever the wind takes it.

[Associated Press; By JERI CLAUSING]

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