List of ballooning events

This is a List of ballooning events in the Birmingham area:

This list is incomplete and may never satisfy any subjective standard for completeness. You can help Bhamwiki by expanding it.

• June 12, 1891: Charles Swinney gave a balloon demonstration at Lakeview Park, inflating a bag with a fire of pine knots and oil, which then lifted him up several hundred feet. He released himself and descended by parachute. The balloon landed on the roof of the Lakeview Hotel.
• September 26, 1891: Dr Blue Mountain Joe, a traveling medicine salesman, ascended by hot air balloon from a vacant lot at 1st Avenue North and 19th Street. Will Whitfield of Rome, Georgia, one of the spectators who was holding a rope before the balloon's ascent, had his leg caught in the rope and was carried aloft. Dr Joe advised him to hold on before releasing himself to the ground by parachute. Whitfield and the balloon came to rest on a house at 9th Avenue North and 17th Street. Whitfield was uninjured in the flight.
• April 6, 1909: The opening of the new Birmingham Terminal Station was accompanied by a two-balloon race starting at Capitol Park.
• October 23, 1920: The 1920 International Balloon Race launched from Birmingham.
• May 21, 1921: The 1921 National Balloon Race launched from Birmingham, the first event in the city's semicentennial celebrations.
• July 28, 1934: The 1934 National Balloon Race launched from Birmingham.
• December 31, 1981: The Alabama Lions Great Balloon Race departed from Legion Field just prior to kick-off of the 1981 Hall of Fame Bowl.
• February 3, 1995: Skyquest 5 passed over Birmingham on the way from Chanute, Kansas to Savannah, Georgia, claiming several distance records for the AX-6 size balloon.
• May 12-14, 1995: 1995 Pepsi Hot Air Affair

Reference

• Baggett, James L. (September 2006) "Hot Air Balloons over the Magic City." Birmingham Magazine. Vol. 46, No. 9, p. 316-17