Balloonacy Revisited

It’s true that a hot-air balloon landed in my backyard. Actually, it’s happened repeatedly — probably more than a half dozen times between September 2002 and last Sunday.

Last week, after Thanksgiving, my girlfriend and I spent a few days at a cabin in the mountains of Northern Maine. It was quite relaxing, although we both needed to get back on Sunday. We decided to drop by my house on the way back to Boston. When we rolled up my street at about 4pm on Sunday, there was a van and trailer blocking my driveway and a bunch of people milling about around the van and in my driveway. What was this about?

I stopped behind the van, and motioned to a woman (who was standing near the driver’s door of the van) that I’d needed them to move the van so that I could pull into my driveway [1]. She approached my window, so I rolled it down.

“Hi!”, she said. “We’ll be out of your way in a second!”

“Alright”, I said. “What’s going on?”

“We just had a landing, and we’re getting packed up.”, she noted.

“Hot-air balloon?”, I inquired.

“Yes.”, she said.

“Did you land in my backyard?”, I asked.

“No”, she said. “We landed out here in front.”

(At this point, I nearly exploded. I looked at my girlfriend who also looked unamused.)

I saw the name on the van, so I continued. “Are you guys aware that I told you not to land in my yard?”

“No sir, but I’ll make note of it.”, she said. “We left you a bottle of champagne for your troubles. It’s near your garage door.”

“Listen, I’m not trying to give you a hard time, but do you have any idea how dangerous it is to be landing in somebody’s yard? Besides, I don’t want to be held responsible if something happens to you while you’re on my property. And I certainly don’t like the idea of a hot-air balloon landing so close to my house.”, I said [2].

“I understand, sir. We’ll make note of it.”

It was interesting to note that people were still milling about, probably drinking $5 bottles of “sparkling wine” (my girlfriend wonders who should call it champagne when it costs $5 per bottle, really?). We pulled the car into my garage and went inside. I was fuming. I couldn’t believe that someone would be so arrogant as to land a flying vessel in my yard — in a non-emergency situation — in particular after having been asked not to. I was wondering who’d be interested in taking a ride in a hot-air balloon at the end of November. I started having daymares about the Hindenberg.

Thing is, I’m no lawyer. I don’t work for the FAA. I do not pretend to be a lawyer by reviewing FAA guidelines for recreational aircraft. It felt like flying objects shouldn’t be landing in my yard, but I wasn’t certain I’d be correct to assume they weren’t allowed to land wherever they’d wanted.

I decided to sleep on the matter and to do some further reading on Monday. There was no sense in doing something absurd like calling 911 over it. Based on my reading, I was still unsure if hot-air balloons were able to land in my backyard. I found the website for my local police department and sent them a brief email message about what I’d seen, informed them I had no idea if hot-air balloons were able to land in residential areas, noted how dangerous it would seem to have a balloon land in my yard, and asked what they would suggest as a course of action.

My local police left a voicemail message for me on Monday night and I followed up by phone this morning. Apparently, there are FAA guidelines for the operation of hot-air balloons. I know of their existence now since the captain of my local police told me he’d read them to get a baseline for how he’d approach the balloon companies.

So, what it amounts to is this: technically, hot-air balloons can (and will) land wherever they want. However, if you’ve specifically asked a balloon operator not to land in your yard, they are supposed to land elsewhere. My local police have contacted all of the local balloon companies about their landing practices, and one of the local balloon clubs even wants to talk to me in response to my complaint (for reasons that I cannot understand). I’m not sure I want to speak with them but there’s a chance I may see what they want. Maybe they’ll want to give me a free ride as part of Landowner Appreciation? I’d possibly take them up on such an offer.

It would be door-to-door service, after all.

[1] Note: I live in a rural area. There is absolutely zero reason to be blocking someone’s driveway as there is an tremendous amount of space to park on both sides of the street.
[2] Many hot-air balloons are loaded with propane.