Vermont man inspects and repairs balloons in his Andover barn.
ANDOVER, Vt. – First the state of Vermont was known for its sheep farmers, and then for its dairy farmers. Now it has a balloon farmer: Paul Stumpf, who inspects and repairs hot air balloons in his barn, and launches balloons from his fields.
Stumpf runs a mail-order balloon equipment business, and serves as the northeast U.S. distributor for a major balloon manufacturer. It’s a perfect fit for Stumpf; he’s always wanted to live on a farm, and he loves flying balloons.
“I’ve worked a long time to get to this point,” he said on a sunny day recently, as he hoisted a 300-pound wicker balloon basket into his loft for an inspection.
Stumpf, 46, is a Connecticut native who started his balloon business in Rhode Island in 1980 and fulfilled a long-held dream of moving to Vermont with his wife and children three years ago.
He got into ballooning early when his high school art teacher in Farmington, Conn., helped him build a balloon from scratch. He got his pilot’s license at 17 – a requirement for ballooning.
“I was kind of a hands-on project oriented kid,” Stumpf said. “I thought it would be really cool to build a balloon.”
It was, and he was hooked. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and started a balloon ride business in coastal Rhode Island, where he also repaired balloons and started his mail-order business of balloon supplies and parts.
Now in Vermont, Stumpf believes he’s one of only two balloon repairmen, inspectors and dealers in the state – and the other is that high school art teacher, B rian Boland, who moved to Thetford 16 years ago and offers balloon rides, repairs, and a personal museum of antique and experimental airships.
It’s not easy to come by statistics on Vermont balloonists. The state Agency of Transportation refers questions to Boland, who estimates only about 35 people in the United States repair balloons and sell balloon parts as he and Stumpf do.
About six Vermonters own hot-air balloons, he said, and some of them offer rides – for which the going rate is about $200.
The Federal Aviation Administration requires that all aircraft, including balloons, pass an inspection at least once a year. That’s a big part of Stumpf’s business.
Another part is repairs. On a recent sunny morning, he spread out thousands of square feet of bright rip-stop nylon on the floor of his insulated hay loft to repair some heat damage to the balloon “envelope.”
Along one wall were three sewing machines at tables. A rack under a vast cutting table held dozens of bolts of bright cloth.
Stumpf Balloons doesn’t have any employees, but Stumpf’s wife helps with the business, he said.
After all those years and too many flights to count, Stumpf still loves to go up in hot air balloons. He loves to fly, and he loves to see nature from above – quietly, and carried where the wind blows – across a field, or down a winding river.
“It’s an aerial nature walk,” Stumpf said. “With a balloon, you become part of the wind -you don’t feel any breeze. You can skim along the treetops and kiss a pond.”
Balloonists need a close and expert reading of the wind to navigate because it is the wind that decides where the balloon will go.
When Stumpf goes flying, he gets his readings – which can differ from one field to another – and picks his launch site according to where he wants to end up. Sometimes the wind changes mid-flight, and he has to change his plans.
“I’ve landed everywhere you can imagine,” he said. “In rivers, on woods, in a cemetery, on buildings.”
But he’s never seriously damaged a balloon, and he’s never been hurt.
“You just don’t go flying in New England if there’s any wind around,” he said.
Ballooning is not a growth industry – at least not around Vermont, Stumpf says. He thinks that’s partly because development has eaten away the open land balloonists rely on, and because the weather is inexplicably not as calm as it used to be.
“It seems the weather has progressively been less and less balloon-friendly over the last 10 or 15 years,” he said. “I remember the days when we were able to fly much more frequently.”
Maintaining and flying balloons also takes a lot of time.
“It’s a very all-encompassing sport,” he said. “It’s not really a weekend warrior thing; it’s almost a lifestyle change.”
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On the Net:
Stumpf Balloons: http://www.stumpfballoons.com
Balloon Inn Vermont Vacations: http://www.ballooninnvermont.com
AP-ES-05-26-03 1403EDT
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