Just before the break of dawn Friday morning, pilots and crew members began filing into Longview’s Maude Cobb Convention Center in preparation for the 32nd annual Great Texas Balloon Race.

As a reporter, I have covered the race before and experienced the thrill of riding with a chase crew, which spots the pilot in the air and follows on the ground to assist with the balloon landing. However, until yesterday, I had never ridden in a balloon.

As the pilots exited the morning briefing, where they received a weather report and target destinations, I joined in with the crew of the World’s Largest Gumball Machine, piloted by Jan Sines, of Missouri.

Sines’ balloon was not able to compete in the race because it is considered a “hybrid” balloon.

“We are not quite a special shape balloon because we don’t have and arms of other shapes sticking out of our balloon,” Sines said. “But we are not quite a race balloon either because we do have a special design.”

As competing pilots ran to their vans and headed off to find a precise launch location, Sines said, “Today is just for fun for me. I don’t mind that at all.”

Sines said the most important factor pilots need to consider when choosing a launch location is wind direction.

“You can control your altitude precisely,” Sines said. “However, you can’t control left or right very well unless you find a wind current that will take you there.”

Before launching the balloon, pilots will release a small, black helium balloon and use special compass that allows them to track the direction the wind is blowing at different altitudes.

“You watch how it changes. Then according to that you try to find a launch site that, with those statistics, you think you can get into the target,” she said. “When you’re racing, usually as you change altitude there is a consistent change is wind direction. You just take advantage of that to get you where you want to go.”

Pilot Jan Sines (below) still enjoys every flight, even after 37 years with her head in the clouds. Once the launch site was determined and permission was obtained from the land owners, the crews unloaded and used a high-powered fan to begin inflating the large, canvas balloon until the balloon was full enough to use the propane thrusters without causing a fire.

Balloon Race Chairman Richard Lazarus said more than 3,000 gallons of propane are used during the three-day event, which includes a nightly “balloon glow” party and concert at the East Texas Regional Airport.

The event also includes a “key grab contest” Saturday and Sunday mornings at the airport, in which pilots attempt to fly over a 20-foottall poll and drop a large ring onto it. Those who succeed will share a $10,000 prize, Lazarus said.

Pilot Jan Sines blows hot air into her giant gumball machine balloon Friday morning in Longview. (right) A colorful balloon soars over the treetops in the distance. As the thruster blasts heat the air in the balloon, it begins to slowly rise like a sleeping giant.

The anticipation mounted as Sines, another guest and I climbed aboard, like three eggs in a giant Easter basket. After a few more pops from the thruster and a little bit of wobbling in a buoyant basket, we were off and soon climbing far above the trees.

Unlike flying in a plane, ballooning provides a complete, 360-degree, view of the scenery with no walls and virtually no sound.

Apart from the occasional bursts from balloon’s thrusters, balloon passengers experience a truly silent ride as they coast along on the upper-level wind currents.

Dotted across the horizon, competing balloons jockeyed for position as they coasted toward the designated targets. Whether it was the luck of the wind or topnotch piloting, some balloons coasted straight over the targets while others, not so lucky, ended up far off course.

In addition to the typical round balloons, the sky was spotted with special shaped balloons ranging from Felix the Cat and an eight-legged monster, known as the Purple People Eater, to the Little Bees and Coco the Clown, piloted by Sines’ husband, Gary.

‘CHEATING DEATH’

FOR 37 YEARS

In what would become a life-long obsession, Sines said she fell in love with the sport in the early 1970s.

The sad face of Coco the Clown, piloted by Gary Sines, rises over the Longview skies. Coco is one of three special shaped balloons owned by the Sines family. While working as stumpcutters, she and her husband saw a balloon in the Missouri skies and decided they could do that. So without any ballooning experience, or even riding in one before, the Sines purchased their first balloon.

“Our first flight was in our balloon,” she said.

The Sines now own eight balloons, including three special shapes, passenger balloons and a sport balloon, which Jan said she never gets to fly because the basket is not designed for passengers and she usually has people with her.

In what has become a Sines family tradition, she and her husband will call each other after a balloon ride and say, “We cheated death again.”

Sines explained the tradition began after their first flight when a person they were with said the phrase.

“We liked it and it stuck. So now we say it every time,” she said with a smile. “We often say it now to scare our passengers on their first flights.”

The Sines have ‘cheated death’ all over the United States and in several foreign countries, including Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru, France and Inter-Mongolia China, just to name a few.

“Every flight is a new experience for me,” Sines said.

She described one flight in which she and her husband landed in a castle in France.

“This castle had a moat and big walls,” she said. “We landed in there and they brought out a tray full of snacks and little cups of strong coffee. We had breakfast then blasted off again.”

“The whole time I kept hoping someone would come out and say, “Jan, you’re my long-lost niece. This is your castle,” she said jokingly.

Sines also said they had the opportunity to fly over the Pyramid of the Moon, near Mexico City.

“We flew along a trough that runs in front of the pyramid, up the stairs and right over the top of it.”

‘JOY OF SHARING’

While flying in exotic locations is the “icing on the cake,” Sines said the biggest thing that has kept her flying for 37 years is the joy of sharing the experience with others.

“It’s been a blessing for us. We’ve met people we would have never met if it weren’t for ballooning,” she said. “We do a lot of passenger flights. Proposals are wonderful. We’ve had people get married in the balloon.”

Sines said she especially enjoys taking passengers on their first balloon ride.

“I took a 95-year-old woman up for her first flight,” Sines said. “She was hanging her head over the basket, shouting down to people, ‘This is my birthday present. I’m 95-years-old. You’ve got to do this before you die.’

“Two years ago, I took up a woman. They were having Christmas in July because she was dying of cancer,” she continued. “It was a tear jerker. It was everything I could do to not cry, but it brought her so much joy.

“The family called after she passed away and told me they used one of the pictures of her ballooning at her funeral,” she said. “Those are the little touches of special things that happen.”

Sines said she plans to continue ballooning for as long as she can and “when I can’t, someone had better give me a ride.”