Columbus residents can fly up, up and away at 25th annual Labor Day Balloon Festival
Dan Stukas has handled a lot of passenger rides in his hot air balloons over the past few decades. He often finds himself answering the same questions over and over again.
How does it fly? How do you steer? Where do you go to the bathroom?
One day Stukas had some passengers flying over Georgia when he had an idea. He asked the group to look down.
“Do you see the line there?,” Stukas asked the passengers. “That line down there. The line between Fulton and Cobb County?”
“Where?” the passengers asked. “We don’t see anything.”
“Oh, I forgot,” Stukas responded. “That, what you’re looking at, is God’s Earth. What you see is the beauty of the Earth that we have been given.”
When looking from above, Stukas explained, it’s easy to see how political boundaries that divide counties and states don’t exist.
This upcoming weekend, Stukas looks forward to making his debut as the balloon meister at Callaway Garden’s 25th annual Labor Day Balloon Festival that runs from September 1-3.
Stukas is more comfortable in the air piloting both airplanes and hot air balloons than he is on the ground, his wife, Susan, told the Ledger-Enquirer.
He has received the FAA Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award for more than 50 years of safe flying, which is the highest accolade for pilots. He flew for six years in the U.S. Air Force and 25 years with Delta Airlines.
It was Susan who first suggested that they ride in a hot air balloon in 1989, Stukas said, and only a few years later he took his toddler son, DJ, into the air.
“I had him underneath my arms when he was three,” Stukas said.
DJ now pilots hot air balloons himself and will be participating in the festival.
‘A Salute to Summer’
Visitors to the event can expect a weekend filled with food, recreation activities at Robin Lake Beach, children’s activities, live music and fireworks shows.
If wind and weather permits, there will be a Balloon Glow from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. each day. During the Glow, balloons are raised at once to glow under the stars providing a show synchronized to an original score produced for the anniversary.
Tethered balloon rides will be available throughout each day if weather permits.
Other attractions include seeing hundreds of butterflies at the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center, the TreeTop Adventure and Zipline course, the Birds of Prey lakeside show and exploring the Megabugs trail.
On September 2, Callaway will host a Classic Car Cruise-In at the Robin Lake Beach Dome with vintage cars and trucks from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This year’s festival is special because it is the 25th anniversary of an event that is Callaway’s “salute to summer,” said marketing manager Rachael McConnell.
“We really brought this event together because it’s a unique way to allow guests to experience something different,” she said.
This year’s event will have more than double the number of balloons than it ever has had before, McConnell said. There will be 24 hot air balloons taking to the sky over Callaway during Labor Day Weekend.
Guests will be up close to the balloons on the grass next to them, she said.
“There’s not a bad seat in the house,” McConnell said.
Stukas hopes that people don’t allow a fear of heights to prevent them from experiencing riding in a balloon during the festival. Most people who believe they are afraid of heights are really afraid of edges, he said, but they tend to feel more secure inside the basket.
“What you need to do is relax and enjoy the beauty of the Earth from a different perspective,” Stukas said. “That’s what it’s all about.”
