LEWISTON — Balloon pilot Bill Whidden of Florida arrived in Auburn on Wednesday and from his Fireside Inn hotel room, he looked up the aviation weather forecast for Friday’s Great Falls Balloon Festival’s 6 a.m. launch.

He smiled.

“We’ve got only two knots of wind coming out of the north going due south, so if we launch out of the field down there we’re going right across. We’ve got a ceiling of 12,000 feet, 3 percent chance of precipitation. … Ooohh! That looks really good.”

With his wife, Trish, as crew chief, Whidden flies the Great Balls of Fire balloon. This year he’s also taking over as balloonmeister for Mickey Reeder of Lewiston.

It’s a big job.

During the launches at 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Aug. 19-21, the balloonmeister is essentially director of flight operations, in charge of inviting pilots to the festival, making sure each is insured, inspected, has a current flight review as required by the Federal Aviation Administration and a good safety record.

“We have a great bunch of pilots,” he said. “I’m very comfortable with them. They’re high-hour pilots” with lots of flying experience. “Most of them I’ve been flying with for years. I know them personally. Like Jim Rodrigue, the only local (pilot) you’ve got.”

This year, pilots are coming from Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Florida, Delaware and other states. “When you have guys coming that far, that speaks well that people enjoy coming up here and flying.”

Lewiston-Auburn is a good — but not great — flying area, Whidden said. A great flying area is Kansas where the land is so flat, “you can fly for an hour or two and land” anywhere. “Here you’ve got to know how to fly, make your balloon go where you need it to go. That’s what these guys are good at.”

The balloonmeister leads weather and flight briefings that determine if conditions are right to go up. “I make the call,” Whidden said, adding he tends to be cautious.

The worst part is having to call off a flight. “I hate it when the crowd doesn’t see what it came to see.”

Whidden may live in central Florida, but he knows Lewiston-Auburn.

“Bill has participated in almost every single Great Falls Balloon Festival since the beginning,” said Marcus Talarico, the festival’s vice president and ride coordinator.

“I get a bang out of this little parade they do,” Whidden said. “I’ve been to big parades, Macy’s, Madi Gras. I love it when all these people run up and down the street and we throw balloon cards out to them. Here, there’s a lot of excitement.”

Whidden has an extensive background. He’s flown for 33 years in most of the 48 states, plus Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and Portugal.

He’s flown into Niagara Falls, the Austrian Alps in the winter, has been balloonmeister for 100-plus festivals and is a frequent guest speaker at balloon safety seminars in the Southeast.

He was introduced to ballooning more than 30 years ago when he was running his cattle farm in Tallahassee, Florida. A college friend asked if her boyfriend could stop by with a balloon.

“I was thinking, ‘What is a grown man doing playing with balloons?’ A hot air balloon never crossed my mind,” Whidden said. “They show up. We went to my cow pasture and took off. At first it was Trish and I in the basket. Then he wanted to put our kids in the basket. I said, ‘I’m staying in this thing. It’s too much fun.'”

Today, Whidden runs “Florida Balloon Adventures.” They travel to festivals nationally and internationally.

One of the best parts of ballooning is introducing it to someone who has never gone up. “They’re all excited. In flight, you can’t even talk to them for the first 10 minutes, they’re so mesmerized. They take a million pictures.”

When lifting off the ground he sees happy faces. Crowds are cheering. “You feel like you’re on stage,” he said.

bwashuk@sunjournal.com