Balloon

By now, the HiFlyer tourist balloon already should have given thousands of customers a lofty view of downtown. Instead, city officials are still working with the state to get it off the ground. "We'd like to get the balloon back up in operation," said Deputy Mayor Laurie B. Schwartz. "We're working through the issues." After a difficult first year that included bad weather, post-Sept. 11 fallout and other woes, the balloon operator faces a bigger hurdle: exorbitant insurance costs. Premium costs have more than doubled since last year, from $150,000 to $366,000, part of an industrywide trend.

NBC did not interrupt its broadcast Thursday of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade to bring viewers the news that an M&M balloon had crashed into a light pole, injuring two sisters. In fact, when the time came in the tightly scripted three-hour program for the balloon's appearance, NBC weaved in tape of the balloon crossing the finish line at last year's parade - even as the damaged balloon was being dragged from the accident scene. At 11:47 a.m., as an 11-year-old girl and her 26-year-old sister were being treated for injuries, the parade's announcers - Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and Al Roker - kept up their light-hearted repartee from Herald Square, where the parade ends.

GENEVA -- They have cleared the Alps, crossed Africa and Asia and the great Pacific. They have skirted war zones and bumped through storms. They've been practically becalmed, traveling as slow as 20 mph, using up precious fuel at 8,000 feet. And they have hurtled at speeds up to 115 mph in the jet streams at more than 35,000 feet.They have been chilled and frightened, mesmerized and challenged on an aerial journey for the ages -- the quest to become the first human beings to circumnavigate the globe nonstop in a balloon.

The folks who work with the Berg Dental Group in Forest Hill are always looking for ways to make their patients relax. On a recent afternoon, about 25 employees at the dental clinic gathered in their break room for a class on magic and balloon sculpting. For more than an hour, the employees watched as Jeff Teate, the balloon man, showed them how to lighten up a visit to the dentist. "I was terrified of the dentist when I was a kid," said Teate, 42, of Aberdeen. "I wanted to do something to help kids become more relaxed when they go to the dentist.

An all-new Westminster Fallfest will arrive tomorrow when the 16th annual celebration of autumn opens with a parade at 7 p.m. from Western Maryland College down Main Street to East Middle School on Longwell Avenue.The 10th annual parade will feature former Oriole Paul Blair as grand marshal; high school marching bands from Westminster, North Carroll, South Carroll and Francis Scott Key; the Boumi Temple Camels; clowns, costumed characters, floats and horses."We'll judge the floats for the first time -- the mayor will judge them," said Carol Donovan, director of recreation for the city.

As thousands looked on nervously from below, the tethered tourist balloon at Port Discovery stalled during a wind squall over downtown Baltimore yesterday afternoon, leaving its 17 scared occupants stranded 200 feet above ground and buffeted by high gusts until they were finally lowered to safety after nearly two hours in the air. Four sightseers were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries suffered when the balloon, in the ordeal's most terrifying...

The operators of a tethered balloon should have seen a storm coming on the afternoon of July 17, when 16 passengers and one crew member were stranded for 90 minutes in fierce winds high above downtown Baltimore, according to a state report released yesterday. The crew lacked sufficient training in meteorology and emergency procedures, leading one worker to the mistaken belief that a brake had jammed and disabled the winch that could have hauled in the balloon, the report from the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation said.

West Friendship - where the yards are big and the highway is only a distant hum. For Ron Broderick, this is the beginning of balloon country. On a cool morning with no wind, he'll be up before dawn, getting ready to fly. He'll drive north of Interstate 70 with his crew to a field near Taylorsville or Mount Airy, where they'll unfurl one of his two multicolored nylon balloons (called "envelopes"), attach the basket and float away. If he's alone up there, sometimes he'll take it up to 3,000 feet, because he likes the way the Chesapeake Bay sparkles at sunrise.

It was a venture that almost didn't fly. HiFlyer, the helium-filled tourist balloon based at a courtyard next to Port Discovery children's museum, has taken five years to get off the ground. Then, just as Baltimore's newest attraction was about to take its inaugural flight Thursday, traffic jams and smoke from the train wreck forced a postponement. But yesterday the balloon ride developed by Sky High of Maryland LLC took off. "Finally," said Lee Raskin, who heads Sky High, as HiFlyer's doughnut-shaped gondola swayed through the air above the museum and Power Plant Live entertainment complex.

The state investigation into the tethered balloon ride mishap that stranded 16 passengers aloft over the Inner Harbor for nearly two hours this month is expected to take as much as 60 days or longer - increasing the likelihood that the attraction will not fly again this season. "The longer it takes to get everything resolved, the more we have to consider in looking at reopening," said Alan M. Leberknight, president of the nonprofit Balloon Over Baltimore Inc. board. "The heart of the season is from the time school stops to when it starts up again," he said.