Hammond’s idea wasn’t just hot air

By BOB HIGH
Staff Writer

Andy Hammond rode in a hot air balloon in the early 1980s, and he never forgot it.

As part of the Strawberry Festival’s 2005 committee, 50-year-old Andy felt North Carolina’s oldest agriculture celebration wasn’t growing. It needed something new.

“I felt that maybe getting hot-air balloons here to give people rides was something we could do,” the Chadbourn native explained.

Hammond found via the Internet the name of a man who headed the Eastern N.C. Hot Air Balloon organization. He was Kevin Knapp, a resident of Waltsonburg, a community near Farmville in Pitt County.

Knapp was enthusiastic, and came to Chadbourn in the fall of 2004. Hammond and Knapp formulated a plan that bore fruit in strawberry season.

Six private balloonists, with their rigs in trailers, rolled into Chadbourn the first weekend in May 2005.

‘Spark we needed’

“It was great. It was the spark we needed, and you couldn’t have asked for better pilots, and the reception they got from the local people,” Andy recalled.

Knapp, however, wasn’t able to attend and bring his colorful Mayflower balloon. He was already booked for another location, but his plans for 2006 and 2007 included Chadbourn’s festival.

“This event has grown unbelievably. It’s now a major stop for most the balloonists in the Carolinas, and it’s gotten to be one of the biggest events in the South,” Knapp, a 17-year balloonist, observed.

There are 25 balloons scheduled this year for the May 3-6 festival. Five of them are sponsored by corporations – Mayflower, BB&T, Touchtone Energy, Hooters and the N.C. Ford Dealers.

Hammond noted the first six balloons in 2005 were brought by Randy Lee from Four Oaks, Ian Leonard from Fayetteville, Buddy Carter from Pleasant Garden (near Greensboro), Ed Yonkey from Johnsonville, Tenn., and Rene Meier and Dan Kirk, both from Virginia.

Chadbourn’s positive news

“We owe a big debt of gratitude to these guys. They were the people who made it all possible, and now Chadbourn is hitting the news is a positive way, thanks to these guys and their friends,” Hammond stated.

Knapp agreed. He’s entering his third year as chief pilot for the Mayflower balloon. He has 24 festivals scheduled this year, and by next weekend Knapp will have made appearances in California, Nevada, Wisconsin, Florida, Kentucky and Tennessee.

Knapp, a 29-year U.S. Army veteran, fell in love with ballooning in St. Louis. He went to where a balloon was getting ready to lift off, a man said, “hold this” and gave him a rope.

“I was hooked. I’ve been doing it ever since. It fits in to my desire for action and adventure, just like the Green Berets did for the last 15 years I was in the Army.”

Knapp had an unusual experience last October as co-pilot in the America’s Challenge balloon race.

Between cold fronts

He and pilot Andy Cayton launched Oct. 7 from Albuquerque – the balloon capital of the world -- between two cold fronts, and they had to stay in the middle if they wanted to be competitive for distance.

Knapp and Cayton figured it right. After extensive conversations with weather experts, they rose to 13,500 feet and traveled at 42 mph out over the Gulf of Mexico near New Orleans.

Just like it was predicted, the winds at 12,000-plus feet carried their balloon back toward land, and on the third morning of their flight, they were over Florida.

They made a “stand up landing” in an excited man’s front yard in Citra, Fla., and won the race. They covered 1,478.6 miles in 60.5 hours, and had a cushion of nearly 10 miles ahead of the second-place team, which landed after 41.8 hours.

“The decision to fly over the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t a hard one for us, and we surprised a lot of people. Andy’s from Florida and we joked about landing in his backyard. We were within 15 miles of his house when we landed,” the pleased Knapp said.

Ballooning facts

Knapp is interested in the history of ballooning and quickly throws out the following facts:

• It’s the oldest and safest form of flight.

• Ballooning began in France in 1783.

• Ballooning began in the United States in the 1840s.

• The modern hot-air balloon was developed in the United States in the 1960s.

• There are 750 balloons in the sky at the same time each fall in Albuquerque, N.M.

• Napoleon used a balloon to observe enemy locations.

Knapp intends to build a replica of Thaddeus Lowe’s balloon used by the Yankees in the War Between the States. Lowe observed troop movements in Virginia, Maryland and South Carolina.

The Yankees had seven balloons and went aloft hundreds of times. The South had two, but only managed three flights.

For Knapp, his best time is in the air, and he’s offering this year to be the co-pilot again in a balloon in the America’s Challenge. The difference in such races is that helium or hydrogen is used to inflate the balloons.
Propane is used for the Chadbourn-based flights.

Want to ride?

Hammond and Knapp point out that with 25 balloons this year, there will be many opportunities for the public to fly on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, May 3-6.

“We’re getting calls from all over the place. People are really finding out about the festival and the balloons,” Hammond said.

To book a flight, call Hammond at his work place at Worthington Funeral Home in Chadbourn at 654-3518, or contact him on his cell phone at 640-7760. It’s $175 per person for 45 minutes to an hour’s flight, weather permitting.

With skyrocketing fuel prices, the money pays balloonists for their high-priced propane, plus meals and essentials.

All flights leave from Chadbourn, and the evening rides begin about 90 minutes before sunset. The morning trips are just before sunrise.

Knapp and Hammond both pointed out that balloon pilots are considerate of landowners, and try not to land on cropland in use. “We try and find plowed ground before landing in a yard or in a field of crops,” Hammond said.

Spread a white sheet

“People all around Chadbourn, Whiteville, Cerro Gordo, Evergreen, Fair Bluff and the Tabor City area have been very receptive and kind. “We see people driving all the time who pull over, stop and get out to watch. Some of ‘em go to where we land,” Andy added.

Hammond, who grew up in the Hinson’s Crossroads community east of Fair Bluff, asked for Columbus County people who will allow pilots to land their balloons in their yards or nearby to spread a white sheet in their yard.

“We can see a white sheet very easily, and then we don’t have to worry about whether or not the landowner is going to be upset when we land. When the wind runs out, we don’t have a choice.

“We have to land in a safe place, because we have passengers and we don’t want anyone to be injured or to damage the balloon,” Hammond noted.

For those who wish to contact Hammond electronically, try the Internet at dworthington@weblnk.net or adhamm@sccoast.net