Santa Fe balloon pilot shares lifelong love of flight

Oct. 1—Johnny Lewis and his crew wake up before the sun rises every morning to take people on a hot air balloon ride over the vast New Mexico landscape.

At 77, Lewis is one of the most experienced hot air balloon pilots in the world, with decades of flying. He participated in the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta for over 40 years, the last 20 of which he handled the VIP flights, taking some of the festival's most distinguished guests into the sky.

"It's just magical to fly around that many balloons," Lewis said of the mass ascension, where hundreds of them take to the sky at the height of the event.

"We'll be up and bumping into each other. It's called a kiss when the balloons touch; it's no big deal," he added.

Now, Lewis spends the week of the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta running his business, Santa Fe Balloons, and flying customers over the mountainous landscape of Las Barrancas, just north of Española.

"We had so many people wanting to fly here where it's safer, and it's cheaper," Lewis said. "So we just quit doing the festival about five years ago."

Las Barrancas is an expansive 130,000-acre area with canyons, arroyos and foothills that's run by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Lewis said this makes it a perfect area to fly with no obstructions to get in the way.

"There's no power lines, no houses; of course in Albuquerque, the biggest fear is hitting the power lines, so we've eliminated that problem," he said.

Every morning, Lewis and his crew pick up a group of customers at 6 a.m. and take them to the launch site. On Friday, crew member Jeanne Hertz helped Lewis prepare two balloons that would fly into the sky.

"I'm like the glue that keeps everything organized," Hertz said.

She said she helps keep track of the company's schedule, processes payments and writes certificates for customers who have completed a flight. Hertz stays on the ground to help Lewis monitor wind conditions as he and his customers float hundreds of feet above the ground.

Perhaps one of the most important part of her job is chasing down the balloons, wherever they land.

"When he lands, we try to be there at the landing spot before he gets there," she explained.

She said the wind can sometime push the balloon as it lands, so crew members will stand ready to jump on the basket to keep it from tipping over. Once the landing is successful, Lewis and the crew deflate the massive balloons, before inviting their customers to celebrate with a champagne toast.

"He's just always in a good mood, you know, very mellow and very kind-hearted, very generous," Hertz said of Lewis. "He really is a good guy that makes it easy to work for [him], and he loves what he does."

Lewis' love for flying has been a lifelong passion that started when he was a boy growing up in Abilene, Texas, where his father was a pastor for a local church.

"I saw Around the World in 80 Days when I was a little kid, and I wanted to fly a balloon," Lewis said. "I daydreamed about balloons."

After watching the movie, he dove into books, trying to learn anything he could about flying. He learned about Navy projects that used balloons to make airplane pilots feel like they are lighter than air, and the Montgolfier brothers, who built the world's first practical hot air balloon in the 1700s.

By the time he was 12, Lewis had built his own miniature airplane that he managed to get off the ground, if only for a few moments.

"I pulled it off with a tractor, and it actually went up about 20 feet. It crashed, but I got to fly," Lewis said. "I thought, 'Well, if I built that, I could build a balloon.' "

He recalled asking his parents if they would buy him fabric to build a hot air balloon at home, likely not realizing it would take hundreds of yards of material.

"Well, I go down and try to buy some fabric at the fabric store and charge my dad, and of course they call him, and he put a stop to it," Lewis said.

He eventually started learning to fly a plane in high school thanks to a local parishioner at his father's church.

"One of our parishioners at the church had an airplane and was an instructor, and so his son and I started taking lessons," Lewis said. "So I got my flying lesson real cheap early on."

Once Lewis started attending college at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, he realized he could finally try to achieve his dream. He saved about $3,000, bought a Singer sewing machine, took a home economics class and got to work on building his own hot air balloon.

"I designed and built one of the first modern-day balloons, got in and took off," he said. "That was back in 1967. I've been doing it ever since."

Over the years, Lewis took his balloons across the globe, even flying for National Geographic on an archaeology expedition in Luxor, Egypt. He helps with these expeditions by taking archaeologists into the sky, giving them an areal view of whatever ancient site they are trying to learn more about.

Most recently, Lewis said he went to Mexico to teach pilots how to fly safely over the ancient Teotihuacán ruins.

"We were able to fly just right over the pyramids, within 10 feet of them," Lewis recalled. "What a spectacular flight that was."

Lewis said he likely brought one of the first modern hot air balloons to New Mexico in the late '60s, a few years before the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta took it inaugural flight in 1972.

He started going to the festival in 1975, where he met many friends from all over the world with the same love for hot air balloons that he had. Though he no longer flies at the event, he still goes to visit in the evenings to see them.

The 77-year-old pilot said he still plans to continue to fly his balloons as long as he can.

"When my skill level is not up to par, then I'll quit. But right now, I fly as good as I ever did," Lewis said.