Courtesy of Thomas S. McConnell

Simms Field, shown here in October 1975, was the third of six launch sites used by pilots in the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. The field, which at the time was used to grow alfalfa, was south of Osuna Road Northeast and east of the Diversion Channel.

Photo by Craig FritzTribune

Tribune

Cheryle Ryder of Los Lunas helps hold open the throat of the hot-air balloon Itsa Touchie Subject as it inflates at Eugene Field Elementary School today. The annual Albuquerque Aloft program brought nearly 50 balloonists and their aircraft to Albuquerque-area schools as a prelude to the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

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Forget the climate, the culture - it was Snoopy and the Red Baron that brought the biggest ballooning event in the world to Albuquerque.

The Albuquerque International Balloon Festival, which starts Saturday, draws hundreds of balloons and more than 100,000 visitors to town.

But if you could flash back to the spring of 1971, you'd see a very different Duke City. There were no hot-air balloons in Albuquerque and perhaps only 40 in the world.

Albuquerque businessman Sid Cutter's main objective at the time was to throw a heck of a party on June 5 to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of his family's business, Cutter Flying Service, and his mother's 63rd birthday.

The theme, he decided, would be World War I - with costumes from the period, including Snoopy and the Red Baron.

The party was to be held in an airplane hangar. And the need for an outlandish party decoration sent Cutter on a quest to bring the first hot-air balloon to the city.

"Somebody suggested balloons because they had balloons in the First World War," Cutter said. "I'd never seen one before. But I figured well, I'm in the aviation business, I can use it once and then tie it up for advertising."

He had no idea what he was getting into.

As a pilot, all he needed for a balloon certificate was to send a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration.

So Sid, his brother Bill, and his mother, Virginia, became fully qualified balloon pilots, said Tom McConnell, a family friend and fellow balloon pilot.

"They'd never even seen a hot-air balloon, and they were all licensed pilots," McConnell said.

It wasn't until Cutter flew to South Dakota to pick up his party decoration that he realized he had no idea what he was doing, Cutter said.

"When I picked up the balloon, they showed me how to inflate it, and the thing just kept getting bigger and bigger," Cutter said. "I guess my eyes were as big as saucers. When I flew it back for the party, it wouldn't fit in the hangar, naturally."

But the size didn't stop Cutter from trying - he inflated it inside the hangar anyway, McConnell said.

"The bottom part was actually squashed on the bottom of the hangar, and the top was squashed on the top of the hangar," McConnell said. "They had to shove the basket in underneath."

The party - with maybe 2,500 guests, a German oompah band and a constantly playing version of the film "Those Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines" - was a huge success, Cutter said.

"My brother was telling everybody, 'We're going flying tomorrow,' " Cutter said. "I said 'I don't know how to fly this.' He said 'Well, you have your license.' "

So early the next morning, with a crew holding onto the tether, the brothers started taking short balloon rides up and down - without actually taking off.

That was the plan, anyway, Cutter said.

"So I went up, and I get to the end of the rope, and the ground crew lets go," Cutter said. "And there I am, heading for the power lines. Of course, the (flight control) tower was a little upset that we took off without permission."

Somehow he managed to avoid electrocuting himself and ended up drifting to the University of New Mexico golf course, where he managed to land.

"About 5,000 people and cop cars ended up there with me at the golf course - they hadn't ever seen a balloon, either," Cutter said. "And as we're sitting there with the balloon inflated, I realize I don't even know how to deflate it."

It was then that Cutter became determined to learn how to fly a balloon, McConnell said.

"At that point he was hooked," McConnell said. "That was the first free-flight of a hot-air balloon, to our knowledge, in Albuquerque."

Over the next year, Cutter became skilled at flying his balloon - called Betsy Ross because it was red, white and blue - around town.

He often flew it with an advertising sign for his company, and another that said "This old bag for rent," McConnell said.

And he got some pilot friends together to form the Albuquerque Aerostat Ascension Association, or Quad-A.

"Today, that's the largest balloon club in the world," McConnell said. "It's very active."

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta also has its roots in a party - and in Cutter's odd decoration.

About a year later, on April 8, 1972, KOB radio asked Cutter to bring his balloon out for the station's 50th anniversary party.

"But Sid Cutter, to my knowledge, has never thought small," McConnell said. "He asked what's the largest balloon gathering ever held in the world. The answer was 19 balloons gathered in Britain. So his goal was to beat the record."

Cutter lined up 21 pilots, though a snowstorm in Chicago delayed some of their equipment.

"They ended up with a balloon rally with 13 balloons launching from Coronado Center," McConnell said. "That was the first fiesta, and it wasn't a world record. But every year since then we've had the record."

At some fiestas, more than 1,000 balloons have decorated Albuquerque's skies, Cutter said.

"It's just constantly grown," Cutter said.

Looking back, Cutter says he's somewhat amazed that his party decoration has turned into one of the state's biggest tourist attractions - but he also said he's proud of what the balloon fiesta has become.

"I was just in the wrong place at the right time," Cutter said. "We've got a world-class festival now that just outstrips everything else."