AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2016 - 39

FUN

Anderson and Wolfley began descending immediately,
but McCauley thought perhaps he could get a little farther down the mountain so Jan could find him more
easily this time. He continued on for a minute or two,
and, to his horror, the balloon began climbing again,
caught in a rotor off the mountain.
Fifteen thousand feet, 16, 17...he and Abruzzo were
going northeast at a prodigious rate. They were out
over the high plains, still climbing, riding a chip adrift
in a maelstrom of rising, turbulent air.
"We topped out at about 19,000 feet," McCauley
said. "The air was very cold and turbulent. We hadn't
been using the burner, and now the mouth of the balloon began to close. And we began sinking."
They were on the ragged edge, and knew it. "I
thought about pulling the rip [line] to get us down
faster, then setting a corner of the balloon on fire, but
we were almost three miles above the Earth. The balloon was completely out of control; we were in the
grasp of an invisible monster. We thought we were
going to die."
They knew they had to get heat into the balloon.
"Ben climbed up the lines and held the mouth of the
balloon open as I fired the burner, which could be
swiveled a little bit. I tried not to burn him. Blasts of
hot air slowed our descent and brought the balloon
upright and under control again."
As they descended they went through a wind shear
and began drifting southwest, back toward the city
and the peak. They went back fast, just the way they
had come out. McCauley knew he had to get the balloon down before the wind carried it into the foothills.
They landed on a street in the residential section of the
Air Force Academy campus. It was quite a while before
Jan and the rest of the chase crew arrived.
Nineteen seventy-eight was the last time any of the
four ever attempted to balloon over Pikes Peak. Maxie
Anderson became the first man to cross the Atlantic in
a balloon, on his second attempt, and the first to cross
North America nonstop. He and his co-pilot, Don Ida,
were killed in West Germany in 1983 in a helium balloon accident. Ben Abruzzo died in an airplane crash;
Howard Wolfley died a natural death.
Both Anderson and Abruzzo made huge contributions to the sport of ballooning. They are memorialized
in the Anderson-Abruzzo International Balloon
Museum in Albuquerque.
And Gary McCauley? Retired and living in
Colorado Springs. Occasionally, when the wind begins
to blow, he looks at Pikes Peak and remembers.
Novelist STEPHEN COONTS owns a Cirrus SR22. His

10 romantic flying movies
Yes, you can mix aviation and romance
VALENTINE'S DAY falls on a Sunday this year, so the two of you could spend
a romantic
afternoon with a good aviation
movie and, for many of
these films, a box of Kleenex .
ALWAYS. An aerial firefighter
flies one last mission in a surplus
Douglas A-26 bomber. Starring
Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter,
and John Goodman.
/
/
AMELIA. Love triangle between

Amelia Earhart, her husband, and
a director of air commerce-yes,
really. Starring Hillary Swank,
Richard Gere, and Ewan McGregor.
/
/
FLYBOYS. U.S. fighter pilots form the

Lafayette Escadrille in World War I.
Starring James Franco, Jean Reno,
and David Ellison.
/
/
FOREVER YOUNG. A 1939 pilot wakes
up in 1992. Starring Mel Gibson and
Jamie Lee Curtis.
/
/
HANOVER STREET. During World
War II, a U.S. bomber pilot is on
a secret mission with his English
lover's husband. Starring Harrison
Ford, Lesley-Anne Down, and
Christopher Plummer.
/
/

HIGH ROAD TO CHINA. Two 1920s
biplanes fly into China to save the
heroine's father. Starring Tom
Selleck and Bess Armstrong.
/
/
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN. A
U.S. Navy officer at Aviation Officer
Candidate School gets his wings-
and the girl. Starring Richard Gere,
Debra Winger, and Louis Gossett Jr.
/
PEARL HARBOR. Boyhood friends
become pilots and fall in love
with the same girl at the start of
America's involvement in World
War II. Starring Ben Affleck, Josh
Hartnett, and Kate Beckinsale.
/
/
SIX DAYS, SEVEN NIGHTS. Intense
magazine writer flies with a downand-out pilot in the South Pacific;
they crash. Starring Harrison Ford
and Anne Heche.
/
TOP GUN. Hot-shot pilots at the Top
Gun Navy Fighter Weapons School
earn their wings. Starring Tom
Cruise, Kelly McGillis, and Anthony
Edwards.
/
/

latest novel is Saucer: Savage Planet.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2016