The newsletter is still in need of contributors! As you all know, this has been a tough spring for flying so there hasn't been a whole lot to write about. Anyone with a story to share, opinion to opine, or dream to divulge, please feel free to send it in! As I have said in the past, the only way to make this a good newsletter is to make sure I'm not the only contributor! I look forward to hearing from you.

Sam

This year's Great Plains Balloon Race was held June 12-13 at the Tea airport near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The weather Gods were smiling all weekend and every flight went as planned, making the competition a real free-for-all!

The Friday evening welcome party was a lot of fun with plenty of food, beverage and renewed friendships. One of the highlights of the evening was our introduction to a new aeronaut in the area. Jaron Robert Sagmoe was born to Bryan and Joan Sagmoe of Sioux Falls just two days prior. Congratulations go out to Bryan, Joan and daughter, Lauren.

Saturday morning came early with a 5:30 pilot's meeting which provided the weather briefing and task information. This year, all three tasks were Hare & Hound. Soon after the meeting, we all watched Allen Schlenker (of Aerostar) inflate and glide away to the southwest in the hare balloon. Once airborne, the rest of us began our cold inflations and before we knew it, all 50 balloons were in hot pursuit! Fourteen of the 50 balloons got into the scoring area and after all was said and done, first place was occupied by George Ibach with a toss of 9 feet. In second place was Sam Blackburn with a mark of 11 feet and Bryan Sagmoe was third with a score of 14 feet.

Saturday evening was much the same as the morning flight except the winds were a little calmer and there was very little maneuverability. None of the top scorers of the morning flight made it into the target area and the closest toss was about 150 feet away so the standings didn't change with the second task. It was a beautiful evening , though, and everyone had very enjoyable flights.

At the awards brunch, after everyone had eaten and door prizes had been doled out, the tallied results were made known. For the second year in a row, Minnesota pilots made their mark on the South Dakota scene. George Ibach took first place honors and Sam Who? Blackburn (last year's winner) placed a respectable fourth.

The top five are as follows:

1. George Ibach - Rochester, MN

2. Bill Smith - Storm Lake, IA

3. Bryan Sagmoe - Sioux Falls, SD

4. Sam Blackburn - Rochester, MN

5. Vern Feekes - Sioux Falls, SD

6. Dwayne Waack - Sioux Falls, SD

It was a great time at the GPBR this year, as always. Those boys and girls in S.D. put on a first class event! Any event, though, is made by the people who attend and we are very lucky here in this part of the country to enjoy a wonderful bunch of balloonists and a great deal of comaraderie. My hat's off to you all!

At dawn on Sunday, May 5, 1957, an experimental test balloon was launched near St. Paul, Minnesota. The test was conducted by the United States Air Force and General Mills, Inc., builder of the balloon. The balloon was a 275 foot plastic bag and carried a gondola and a dummy made of steel and rubber named "Sad Sam". The purpose of the experiment was to test high altitude parachute equipment and to gather other information for an actual manned "high dive" bailout project over New Mexico planned for later in the summer. Two systems had been designed to cut Sad Sam loose. Tracking crews followed the balloon as it rose to 90,000 feet and then drifted over southern Minnesota.

It was early on in the space race and that morning the technology of the era had descended onto a sleepy almost 19th century Saratoga. My kids brain, swirling with sputniks and Chuck Yeager test pilots that flew X-2 jet rockets, knew immediately what the white billows represented. I also had familiarity with "Popular Mechanics" and "Mr. Wizard" and I announced the arrival of the Space Age to my teacher and fellow students. I immediately started lobbying for suspension of the usual school tedium and the need for an exploratory visit to the landing site. Soon word from the outside arrived confirming my scientific judgement and as a group, grades 1 through 8, we set off with our teacher for Nellie's woods.

Four hours after takeoff, technicians tried to release the dummy parachutist by remote control, but the equipment failed. An automatic timeclock device in the gondola also failed. The tracking crews could do nothing but wait and hoped that once night came, the cooler air would bring the balloon down. A spokesman said that winds on Sunday would probably cause the balloon to drift possibly as far as southern Iowa. He added that while the bag would likely descend at night, it would probably go back up to 90,00 feet (17 miles) the next morning. Meanwhile, the balloons continued drifting southward towards Iowa.

Word had it that a body had been found in an adjoining field and we joined a crowd of interested observers standing around Sad Sam, who was tangled in a barbed wire fence. Sam was a crash test dumy wearing high altitude gear. A bit spooked, I found the bolt through his head reassuring that he really wasn't a human body. At the time I was a little freaked out by dead bodies, as I recalled one of the local drunks had recently been pulled from the town pond. He had apparently been sitting on a convenient tree stump chair contemplating the universe when he passed out and fell in the drink.

The balloon had returned to earth around 3 a.m. on the Sam Jordan farm, 22 hours after it had been launched. None of the gondola's $90,000 worth of equipment was seriously damaged. A General Mills engineer told the Des Moines Register that it hadn't been decided whether another attempt would be made to drop a dummy jumper. "While this aspect of it didn't succeed," he said. "we learned the balloon itself is fine for the type of experiment plannedand that the gondola is sound."

Several months later, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first manmade satellite to orbit the earth. The American public reaction was a strange mixture of awe, admiration and fear. Fear because there had been no warning. How could it be that the Russians had the technical capability to launch an artificial satellite when the United States had not yet done so? This was the cold war years and many Americans were openly fearful that Sputnik carried either atom bombs to destroy the United States or television cameras to spy on her.

The United States responded by forming NASA and on January 31, 1958, launched its own first successful satellite. The race between the super powers for supremacy in space was on.

I look back now and see that time as almost magic and mythic. I see connections between the past and present. I see faces living and dead; families that made it and some that didn't. I see generations of success and generations of dysfunction. I see technological progress and a simple quality of life; resources improved and resources lost. Oak trees that have been cut for pallets and whiskey barrels and oak trees that are still filled some forty years later with the nests of birds.

David Reis is a Fillmore County Probation Officer.

Reprinted with permission from "Touch & Go" (Balloons over Iowa newsletter)

Looking through the thick trees, as the bright red glow of the morning sun sets the sky on fire. I break the silence of the dawn by pulling the cord on the inflation fan and watch my gentle giant come to life. All colors of the rainbow fill the sector as the wind machine packs the envelope with cold air. Walking around, I see this magnificent piece of fabric waiting, longing to be in the cool blue sky. As I enter the basket, someone snaps a picture. Lighting the two fifteen million btu burners, I motion everyone to move back.

Releasing the thirty foot flame that brings this big beautiful bag of air to life, I can't help but think to myself how awesome this is. Re-checking everything, I ask the voyagers to accompany me in the gondola. Eagerly they climb in and look up in amazement. As we become airborne, the trees massage the bottom of the basket as if to wish us a wonderful flight.

Now, above the trees viewing the mountains on the northern horizon and the city on the south, we fly east into the sunrise. Dipping down into a small lake, we skim across the surface, creating tiny ripples on the mirror-like pane. Droplets falls as we rise again and watch the reflection through the sparkling shower falling from below our feet. A fawn springs to its feet and darts through the forest below followed by eight more if its kind. Then climbing to several thousand feet, an airplane greets us with a wag of its wings.

As we approach the earth, all seems to be relaxed and we rest on the very tips of the green pasture's edge waiting for our chase crew to bring the spoils of a successful flight. The aerostat now safely packed away, everyone recalls the element of flight that each of us enjoyed the most as our journey comes to a close.

Stuart Enloe, Woodstock, Georgia

All in the Rochester area.

When you see these guys, please congratulate them and give them a hearty MBA welcome to the ranks!! Nice going, guys!

(If you know of any new pilots, please be sure to let me know so I can add them in the next newsletter)

President - George Ibach

Vice President - Dave Johnson

Secretary - Gary Gruba

Treasurer - Glen Terry

Junior Balloonist Program - Kevin Knapp

Ground School Division - Luke Cesnik

Social Directors - Becky Pope & Cindy Holton

Webmaster & Newsletter Editor - Sam Blackburn

Send your ideas, articles, photos or any other contributions for the newsletter or website to:

Sam Blackburn

3019 Knoll Lane NW

Rochester, MN 55901-1492

OR

samwho@hotmail.com