Lindsay the Balloon Pilot

Looking up and seeing a hot air balloon floating in the sky always makes me smile. My family and I live in an area where we are often treated to this sight, and lately my husband and I have taken to finding a balloon to chase in hopes of watching it land. One evening in early May, we timed it just right and arrived as a balloon was landing. Seeing the pilot, Lindsay Berger, land her balloon right in front of us in a small field just as we were getting out of the car was exhilarating. Even from where we stood on the road, her smile shone as her crew helped settle the basket and deflate the balloon. It was magical.

Lindsay and I chatted a few days later, our conversation spanning from her first flight to the landing I had watched. Lindsay took her first balloon ride when she “was six years old, on a really cold, negative-degree New Year’s Day, all bundled up and wearing moon boots.” The story begins with a gift certificate for a balloon ride, given by her aunt and uncle to Lindsay’s parents. As the expiration date for the gift certificate neared, her parents needed to choose a date when weather and schedules aligned, which turned out to be that very cold New Year’s Day. As a young girl, Lindsay loved hot air balloons and had even decorated her room in their motif, so when the time came for her parents to take their flight, Lindsay’s dad generously offered for her to go in his place. Thrilled, Lindsay joined her mom, aunt, and uncle as well as a few other passengers for her first flight.

Because she was too small to see over the top of the basket, Lindsay spent much of the ride crouching down and looking through the foothold, a small opening in the basket used for climbing over the side; this was her tiny window to the earth below. Lindsay enjoyed the ride and never forgot the excitement and the feeling of floating.

You can’t see a balloon and not smile.
—Lindsay Berger

During her graduate school years, Lindsay began her quest to get involved in piloting. She started with working in the office of a hot air balloon company and was soon nudging her pilot colleagues, making it clear that she wanted to be in the balloon and was determined to start crewing and training with them. When that company closed, she began crewing for Aamodt’s Balloons. Because balloons have no steering (other than indirectly via altitude and wind direction), some of the landing logistics are coordinated as the balloon is in flight. As a chaser, Lindsay monitored communications, asked property owners for permission to land, packed up the balloon after the landing, and handled other matters to ensure a successful flight.

Lindsay soon began riding in balloons as much as possible to learn the craft. For formal flight training, Lindsay attended Balloon the Rockies in St. George, Utah, where the weather is more consistently favorable for balloons to fly year-round and thus training is more efficient. She earned her FAA commercial hot air balloon pilot’s license, which requires extensive testing and training and allows her to take paying passengers in the balloon.

Her first solo flight came 10 years after she started training, and, since 2015, she has been flying her own balloon, named “Little Cindy” in memory of her mom. Lindsay designed Little Cindy’s exuberantly colorful envelope, i.e., the balloon itself. She picked colors that “give a good contrast to the land and sky, and I wanted those colors so my husband could find me.”

The envelope, “the pretty part,” as Lindsay described it, holds 90,000 cubic feet of air. A basketball holds one cubic foot, so Little Cindy holds the equivalent of 90,000 basketballs overhead. The basket is made of wicker, but hers has a door, a unique feature for ease of entry. Propane is used to power the burners, which control the altitude of the flight. Lindsay explained that the amount of vertical control is amazing and that a balloon can land in really small places. She can even dip down so passengers can pick leaves or get their feet wet in lakes and rivers. “There is no such thing as landing gear. We use friction of the earth and the basket to stop. . . . It is very gentle.”

“Every day and every flight is unique. You might land in the same place twice, but you would take a completely different way to get there as each flight follows its own path. Flying in a balloon is a completely different way of flying. It is very quiet, and it feels like you are simply suspended and it is the earth below you that is moving, not the balloon. You get a full 360-degree panoramic view, which is really special. Plus everyone is happy around balloons.”

Lindsay now flies for Aamodt’s Balloons. She has come to enjoy cold weather flying and participates in the Hudson Hot Air Affair, Hudson Wisconsin’s winter festival and hot air balloon rally.

“A lot of people choose ballooning as a way to celebrate. It’s on their bucket list or is a special, different, cool thing to do to celebrate a special day, like a wedding or engagement. It’s unique to see people in that place and to get to be part of that.”

The night we saw Lindsay land she was on a solo flight. She was greeted on the ground by her husband as well as her aunt and uncle, the two who started the whole affair with a gift certificate for her first flight at six years old.

Were you inspired by an event or an experience at an early age, something  that evolved into a passion that you later pursued and kept doing?