Friday night and Saturday morning Balloons over 66 hindered by high winds

[August 30, 2019]   LINCOLN - On Friday evening, the 'Balloons over 66' weekend kicked off with a pilots meeting held at the Holiday Inn. The meeting was pilots only. As they met, a large group of people gathered outside the motel, hoping to be assigned to crew for a balloon before the evening was over.

The group discussed a number of topics. The speeds were higher altitudes were greater than hoped for, and pilots were told that they had the option to fly or not fly, depending on their own confidence level and the forecasted winds for later in the evening.



Ed Dowling, a local pilot, led a lot of the discussion as the group talked about flight direction and desirable landing spots. Dowling and the others had maps of the area surrounding the city of Lincoln. They talked about the presence of wind turbines and avoiding those areas, and discussed what they considered to be “balloon friendly” landing spots.

After adjournment, outside Scott and Gaynor Goodman assigned each pilot a crew.

By a little after 6 p.m. pilots all headed out to one of six launch sites in the city.





On Eighth Street, Seth Goodman with his Honest Abe balloon, Betsy Kleiss with 4Ever39 inflated. Two other balloons scheduled to be at that address did not inflate. Goodman made lift off, but was not at the controls. He turned over the piloting duties to long time balloonist Scott Wooge, and later Goodman said they took a very fast ride to the Lincoln Elks Golf Course, and a very quick descent.

Kleiss chose to stay on the ground due to the high winds, but she kept the hot air rolling into her balloon, and enjoyed a great time with visiting children and parents.





At other sites, most of the balloons also inflated, but in total only six went into the air, including the balloons of Mike Boylan and Greg Saul, who flew over the downtown area during the Third Friday evening activities.

Goodman said that though many did not fly, Friday evening was far from being a disappointment for anyone. The spectators enjoyed the interaction with the balloon pilots, and the pilots did too.

For the Saturday morning launch, eight balloons went up and enjoyed a nice ride over Lincoln and Logan County. Then it was off to enjoy a large breakfast at the Oasis Senior Center.

Goodman was monitoring the wind speeds and forecast for the evening and was very optimistic that for the Saturday evening launch there would be better conditions.

He was also looking forward to the Saturday night glow on Eighth Street.

[Nila Smith]