It was once again "A Fun Weekend Filled With Color" as Team Icarus headed to Quebec to participate in the 11th Gatineau Hot Air Balloon Festival. This has been one of my favorite places to fly for many years, ever since I saw a picture of the riverside LaBaie Park published in Balloon Life. The combination of rivers, mountains, farms and metro areas makes for a truly unique area to fly. The festival is the main event each year for the City of Gatineau, which is located in the National Capital region just across the river from downtown Ottawa. A massive corps of volunteers provides for every need during festival, and the pilots and crews are welcome with open arms by the entire city and region.
This was the fourth time we attended the event, and it just seems to get better every year. The director general, Jean Boileau, is responsible for the entire function. He and his dedicated staff make everything move like clockwork. This year was an unusual challenge since the city was concurrently hosting the World Hot Air Airship Championship, but even with "steerable" traffic things went very well. Balloon pilots received their bilingual briefing just after the airships, and returned to the field to the sight of the airships launching to begin their assigned tasks. Many balloons were reassigned to launch fields scattered around the city, which resulted in the beautiful sight of balloons and airships scattered throughout the metro area. Although the balloons were cautioned to give right-of-way to the competing airships, there were no problems with conflicting flight patterns.
One of the main features of the event is that each evening hosts a major music concert. This makes it much easier to for the crowd to accept those times when flights are cancelled due to weather. Saturday night features a truly spectacular fireworks display, and Sunday evening is reserved for a balloon glow. Although most musical acts are Canadian, there is usually one American act, and Saturday's massive crowd was very responsive to the power blues of Jonny Lang and his band.
Pilots are treated to a gift pack which usually contains an embroidered jacket and festival shirt. Every briefing ends with wine, beer or champagne for the landowners (or pilots and crew) and this year a gift of cheese was included. At one briefing a CD of the official festival music was given to the pilots. Topo maps are available for navigation, and PZ coordinates are clearly described on a master map and distributed notes. Ottawa tower clears the balloons through their airspace when necessary, and Transport Canada works closely with the event to assure that there are no problems. Local crew is provided, and trained in advance. Passengers are solicited, and brought directly to your launch grid, where they pay the pilot in cash. A farewell brunch at a nice restaurant closes the event, and the winner of the Can / Am Challenge is announced, along with the winner of two round-trip airline tickets for participating in the previous night's glow.
The Beauchamp family once again served as our local crew, but have become our closest friends in Canada. They tell me that being on the crew list is an honor in Gatineau, and that there is a waiting list of eager volunteers. They are extremely loyal, and we are very lucky to have them. We will be returning to Gatineau for daughter Melanie's wedding in July. She and her fiancee Daniel promise at least four second-generation crew in the future!
Although the list was shortened this year to make room for the airships, you can usually attend if you apply early. If you want to attend a beautiful event with guaranteed good times, I urge you to contact Jean Boileau at comm@ville.gatineau.qc.ca for an application.
Mark Schilling
Click here for (A history of the event)