|
Hitting the Wall...almost
TRACE CHRISTENSON Lorenz, 40, of Plymouth, Mich., competed in Battle Creek in the Team U.S. Nationals Hot-Air Balloon Championship and Air Show.
It is a flight that could have cost the lives of Lorenz and his two passengers. But they walked away from the accident with only minor injuries, yet vivid memories. It took years to prepare for the flight and moments for it to end. Lorenz, president of Westwind Consulting, a public relations and marketing firm, has been flying balloons for 15 years. He has participated in all the Battle Creek events and has flown all over the United States and in Japan, Spain, France and Canada. He first flew in China about 1988 and befriended Chinese flyers who came here a few years ago. When a race was organized in October in China, Lorenz was invited. He asked Tom Bergeon of Mason to join him, and the two Americans flew with teams from Germany, Switzerland, Korea, Sweden and 10 pilots from China. The competition was secondary for Lorenz. "The main reason I went over was the flight over the Great Wall,'' he said. NIGHTMARE FLIGHT Bergeon, who owns a laminated wood business and often flies balloons for Re/MAX, decided to scrap plans for a trip to the balloon festival in Albuquerque and instead he and his wife packed for China. Like Lorenz, Bergeon said the high point of the trip was the flight over the Great Wall. The wall, the largest building construction project ever done, runs 1,500 miles. It was built in 200 B.C. as a defensive system. The pilots flew several times while in China, before the day they took their trip across the wall. Lorenz planned to hop over it the morning of Oct. 6 because he had a plane to catch later in the day for a flight to a seminar in Shanghai. The morning seemed good for flying, he said, although weather information was difficult to obtain. "Often you had to look and figure it out for yourself,'' Lorenz said. The pilots launched from a parking lot near the Bading Entrance to the wall. Lorenz said the flight went well until the balloon crossed the wall. "It was a beautiful day with a blue sky. Flying over was a huge rush.'' But quickly, Lorenz's euphoria turned to fear. As he began to drift the balloon into a small valley, the winds picked up and began pushing the balloon at 15 to 20 knots. Because the wall is in mountains, the terrain is difficult for landing and the winds can be tricky and unpredictable, often swirling and violent. "We were coming down and picking up speed,'' Lorenz said. A mountain loomed, and he fired the burners and lifted the balloon over -- with only 10 feet of clearance. Lorenz felt strong winds pushing on the balloon, forcing hot air out and decreasing the lift. He feared that the wind could even close the throat at the bottom of the balloon and prevent him from heating the air inside, sending the craft plummeting to the ground. He believes he was in a rotor, caused by winds blowing off the opposite side of a mountain, causing wind shear and other violent air. Bergeon, who was flying his balloon a mile ahead with his wife, Mickey, could see that Lorenz was in trouble, but could do nothing. ROUGH LANDINGLorenz said he decided he had to land. He was 200 feet above a small plateau when he pulled the line to open the balloon and drop it to the ground. He and his two passengers -- Anmar Sarafa of Bloomfield Hills and Mike Franchi of Plymouth -- were headed for a hard landing. The crash sent the three men tumbling. The balloon bounced and then continued. "I landed on my back and the basket is going over me,'' Lorenz said. "I pushed the basket with my hands and it was gone.'' The 90,000-cubic-foot balloon and the basket disappeared down the side of a mountain. The three men lost glasses and some blood, but no bones were broken. They suffered no serious injury. The balloon was buried in thick brush. They reached it a step at a time, and retreived some equipment. Then they walked five hours before finding a road. It took 50 men and six days to retrieve the balloon, which had been flown only 40 hours. Lorenz received a bill for nearly $3,500 for the rescue effort; he gave them the balloon as payment. Lorenz said flying over the Great Wall really wasn't that big a risk, but he admits he was not fully aware of the weather because of lack of information from the Chinese. "But this was a flight that was in our ability and our limits,'' he said. Lorenz is flying a new balloon, Sun Pirate II, in Battle Creek this week. He's already looking forward to his next adventure. He wants to fly over Mount Fuji in Japan this fall. As for the Great Wall: "Once was enough. I think we got that handled.'' |
When he's not flying with team captain Noah Omerod and teammate
Masahiko Fujita, Lorenz talks a lot about his trip to China,
his flight over the Great Wall and his emergency landing.
