By Mike Collins

Hot air balloons are filling the sky above Albuquerque, N.M., this week during the Thirty-eighth Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. The nine-day event concludes Oct. 11.

More than 500 balloons and some 650 pilots have registered for this year’s Balloon Fiesta, representing states as far away as Alaska, North Dakota, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. International pilots came from Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, among other countries. Average attendance is 850,000 people over the nine-day period.

Flying events are scheduled each morning, beginning around sunrise, with mass ascensions involving hundreds of balloons planned for Saturday and Sunday. Balloon glows—displays of inflated but tethered balloons that begin before twilight and continue until dark—are held in the evenings, weather permitting.

Generally good fall weather and favorable wind conditions make Albuquerque an ideal location for such an event. The “box”—a combination of upper- and lower-level winds created by the Rio Grande Valley to the west and the Sandia Mountains to the east—frequently allows balloonists to take off, climb, and then navigate the different wind currents to land near their launch sites. Cool air from the north, near the surface, moves balloons southward while winds at slightly higher altitudes frequently move in the opposite direction.

This week’s Balloon Fiesta will be the subject of an article in a future issue of AOPA Pilot magazine.