36 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta 2022 Media Guide A mild amount of interest persisted for many years, but it wasn’t until 1960 that a steady interest in ballooning began. Hot air balloon manufacturing firms began “popping up” in the U.S., most of them in the west and southwest. During the next decade, various balloon flight records for altitude, distance and duration aloft were set by several pilots, among them Ed Yost and Don Piccard. In 1971, Albuquerque’s Sid Cutter celebrated the 42nd anniversary of his family’s flying service company and his mother’s birthday, with a Raven balloon inflated as a centerpiece in the Cutter Flying Service hangar. This family social event has become a part of ballooning history because of its impact on the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta which was first organized as a 13 balloon rally the following year. In February 1973, the first World Hot Air Balloon Championship was held in Albuquerque and again in 1975 before it was shifted to other sites in Europe and the U.S. In 1978, well-known Albuquerque balloon adventurers Ben Abruzzo and Maxie Anderson, along with Larry Newman piloted the first balloon ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Their helium filled balloon, the Double Eagle II, landed on August 17th in Miserey near Paris, 137 hours and 6 minutes after leaving Presque Isle, Maine. In January of 2015 gas balloon pilots Troy Bradley and Leonid Tiukhtyaev, the “Two Eagles” team completed their 7,000-mile journey across the Pacific from Japan to Mexico, surpassing the previous distance record (5,209 miles) for gas balloons. Today, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta has expanded to an over 500 balloon event, with more than 700,000 guest visits over the course of nine days. BALLOONING HISTORY