Do you think you'd want to risk life and limb with someone who has been known as Dipstick the Clown?
Do you think you'd want to risk life and limb with someone who has been known as Dipstick the Clown?
"I was Dipstick because I was a quart low," says Don Boyer, explaining his caricature when he was a semi-professional clown.
Boyer spewed a series on one-liners (some of which were even funny) as he prepared to take flight with a couple of passengers in his balloon, AirRageous.
"I was going to name it AirGasm — the most fun you ever had with your clothes on," he said.
But, his mother, a fellow investor, nixed the name, much to Boyer's regret.
Knowing Boyer's background, and with his constant patter, you are on the lookout for being the butt of one of his jokes — perhaps an exploding cigar, a water-spraying boutonniere or an electric handshake buzzer.
So how long have you been flying this balloon?
"You mean including today?" he asks.
Why any landlubber would ever want to enter the wild blue yonder with Dipstick is anybody's guess, but Boyer quickly dispels whatever fears a passenger may have.
"I'm the safety director for a trucking company out of Albuquerque," Boyer says as the balloon gains elevation on this sparkling, wind-free morning. "I hope that instills some confidence in you on the safety side.
"I have fun doing this, but we're safe. I take care of things."
After serving on a ballooning crew for about four years, Boyer and his family decided to buy a balloon in 1989.
After almost 1,200 hours of flight time, Boyer holds a commercial balloon pilot's license and is one of the contract pilots for Wells Fargo.
Guided in a southwest direction by almost imperceptible breezes, the balloon rises to about 1,000 feet.
Oddly, an acrophobic feels no fear of heights, being instead mesmerized by the 360-degree panorama.
The profound silence is occasionally broken by the blasts of hot air Boyer injects into the envelope, and the honking horns of the semis traveling on Interstate 25.
"Did I mention don't fall out?" Boyer asks as he begins the descent into a field not too far from the freeway.
He prepares his passengers for the bump-bump that will occur upon landing, but it turns out to be as light as a feather — no excitement to that.
"I get that all the time, it should be more exciting than that," Boyer says. "I've had people who've flown a bunch, and I land them like that and they look at me and go, 'I didn't know you could land a balloon like that' because their pilot every time goes smack, smack, smack."
Not a bad flight for Dipstick the Clown.
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