Hot Air Ballooning Can be fun and you could become a "Crew Chief"
Gordon Schwontskoski is an experienced Crew Chief with decades of experience in recreational and Commercial Balloon Flights. He has been a speaker at National and Local Safety Seminars, published articles for the BFA and is an expert on Hot Air Ballon Safery. He has graciously given BSOPP permission to publish these articles for the benefit of the hot air ballooning community. His articles are copyright 2011.
Safe ballooning is simply more fun, and our club has joined every other US ballooning club in the first-ever nationwide ground school to promote that end. The goal is to get crew chiefs and crew to higher and more uniform standards of knowledge and skill nationwide and to reduce flying risk to near zero as fast as possible. More brains, less brawn, safer fun more often!
Crew Chief's Corner is for all balloonists. Pilots will find information on flying and skill instruction their instructors never provided. Crew chiefs will find in-depth analysis of their role never discussed before. And crew will find what to expect and what is expected of them as their ballooning experience grows. Regardless of your ballooning rank, you’ll find a wealth of safety techniques and tips found nowhere else in our sport.
These 52 articles take an honest and thorough look at the mechanics, dynamics, realities, and legalities of crewing. They’re not the only or final word on crewing safety – just the first in ongoing discussion and training among you, your pilot, and crew. The key to safety is adapting fundamentals you find here to your equipment, region, flying style, and needs. Crewing is evolving faster than ever before, and the basics have never been as important as they are now!
A word of caution for readers: this is not the passive follow-behind “chasing” of the 1980s. Those days are over. Trouble develops when safety demands and skills/expectations are mismatched. Today’s flying demands informed, skilled, and proactive crew. You’ll learn to understand and manage weather, emergencies, high-wind ground handling, and landing safety like a pilot (while acting as crew) for one simple reason: you serve as your pilot’s only redundancy. Skilled, knowledgeable, and proactive crew are often the missing ingredient in safety. A full list of article topics appears below:
1. Welcome to Crew Chief’s Corner! 2. A Brief History of Crewing 3. Safety Versus Command 4. Finding Great Crew
5. Crew Chief Training and Proficiency 6. Healthy Crew Dynamics 7. Common Crew Mistakes and Misperceptions
8. The Golden Rule and 10 Commandments 9. Dressing the Part 10. FAQs – Frequently Answered Questions 11. Emergency Contacts
12. First Aid and Injury Prevention 13. Equipment Care and Handling 14. Lift Gates and Lifting 15. Rope and Line Safety
16. Legalities and Realities of Crewing 17. Driving Safety and Vehicle Handling 18. Navigation 19. Weather Savvy
20. When Things Go Really Wrong 21. Preventing and Managing Power Line Strikes 22. Crew Briefings 23. Passenger Briefings
24. Radio Communication 25. Tie Offs and Tying Off 26. Layout to Launch 27. Fan Tips
28. Crown Line Command 29. In-Flight Management 30. Being There on Landing 31.There on Landing – Now What?
32. Drop Lines 33. Farm Landings 34. Unloading Passengers 35. Packing Up Fast and Easy
36. Landowner Relations 37. Handling Hostile Landowners 38. Beware of Man’s Best Friend 39. Propane and Refueling Safety
40. Flight Reviews 41. Cold Weather Crewing 42. Crewing with Children 43. Professionalism
44. Tethers 45. Festival Crewing 46. Plan B’s 47. Commercial Crewing
48. Competition Crewing 49. Special Shape Crewing 50. Media Management 51. Beating Crew Complacency
52. Making It All Happen
What you’ll read is field-tested and proven. I’ve served as crew chief on 2000+ flights since 1982, closely studied 100,000+ more, and worked with 10,000+ crew nationwide. My book “Hot Air Balloon Crewing Essentials” and “Crew Zone” column in Ballooning Magazine address crewing topics in even greater detail. Hundreds of pilots and crew nationwide have agreed this is the most valuable hands-on material of any sort they gain from safety seminars. I’m not the nation’s most experienced crew chief by any stretch, just the one most willing to lead the charge for ballooning safety. That said, you won’t ever see the word “I” in these articles; they’re more about your future safety than my ballooning past. Hopefully, this series will start discussions and create a forum to pull out even better crewing ideas and techniques.
What’s in it for you? Pilots and crew who’ve taken tips from my articles, book, and seminars use them on their very next flight. Reported benefits include less equipment damage and repair cost, smoother inflations in any weather, fewer emergencies, easier navigation, safer landings, and faster pack-ups. Performance, communication, morale and loyalty all drastically improve. More safety, skill, fun, and profit with less risk, time, effort, and hassle – what more could any balloonist ask for?
How each club runs these articles – sequentially in newsletters or as a web archive – will vary. Exactly how and how fast your pilot, crew chief, and crew use them is up to you – just apply what you learn. However you access them, thank your club officers for joining this unprecedented safety program which can help unify and grow our sport. My best wishes to you for flights filled with safe fun, adventure, friends, and lifelong memories!
Safe Flights and Soft Landings,Gordon Schwontkowski
Disclaimer: The information presented in these articles is for educational purposes, may not reflect the opinion of the newsletter publisher, and should be placed in context with personal experience and other authoritative sources. The author and publisher specifically disclaim any responsibility for any liability, loss, damage, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred or alleged to have occurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents in this series.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ON CREWING:
Additional articles and updates for this article series may be sent to your club and occasionally interrupt numbered article sequencing.
Safety seminar presentations on crewing by Gordon Schwontkowski are available. Top-rated topics include Crew Proficiency, Accident-Prevention Crewing, Tie-Offs/Tethers/Take-Offs, Weather Savvy, Being There on Landing, Landowner Relations, and others. Contact for availability.
HOT AIR BALLOON CREWING ESSENTIALS - the foundation book for these articles - is now available to every balloonist in the country! Decades of knowledge, skills, and hard-earned lessons with in-depth looks at 30 aspects of crewing from set-up to pack-up – weather, emergencies, ground handling, landing, landowner relations, competition, tethering, media management, and more – pack its 200+ pages. Learn field-tested and proven strategies the pros use to get results - more safety and fun with less risk, time, and effort. Pilots and crew of all experience levels will find this how-to reference book invaluable. Clubs, commercial operators, competition pilots, weather briefers, and crew nationwide endorse this book as did Ed Yost (who provided its foreword). You simply can’t make a better investment in yourself, your sport, or its safety than with this expanded second edition.
The perfect item for crew training, flight schools, festival pilot gifts, club meetings, and safety seminars!
Individuals, clubs, flight schools, and others can order books at any time. Reach out to Gordon Schwontkowski, 82 Silver Tree Circle, Cary, IL 60013. ALso Check BFA.net fo his books as well.