Balloon Fiesta Park’s Silver Anniversary

Balloon Fiesta Park’s SILVER ANNIVERSARY ANNIVERSARY

BY DICK BROWN, AIBF HERITAGE COMMITTEE

This year’s Balloon Fiesta theme is “Time Flies!” – that’s certainly true for Balloon Fiesta Park. This year marks the 25th anniversary of holding our ballooning extravaganza on this grassy fi eld.”

As a multi-use, year-round city park, it serves as a driving range for golfers and a venue for many other sports, except for 60 days each fall when it is leased by Albuquerque

International Balloon Fiesta,

Inc. The park spans about 365 acres including the 78-acre launch fi eld, equivalent to about 60 football fi elds. It is not only home to the annual

Balloon Fiesta but to the stunning Anderson Abruzzo

International Balloon Museum and the 12,000 square foot

Sid Cutter Pilots’ Pavilion.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Pavilion took place on

September 22, 2015, just in time for that year’s Balloon Fiesta.

That wasn’t the only attraction on that September day. The larger-than-life statue of Sid Cutter was offi cially unveiled. Months earlier, the one-ton bronze balloon basket landed at the Pavilion. This 11-foot-high work of art – a signature piece created by native New Mexican and renowned sculptor Reynaldo Rivera – would have had Sid grinning with pride.

Attending the emotional unveiling were Jewel Cutter, Sid’s wife of 31 years, AIBF Executive Director Paul Smith, and Mayor Richard Berry who explained that the taxpayerfunded Pavilion replaced the giant rental tent of Fiestaspast, known to pilots as “The Landing”. The Mayor said the City wanted to honor Sid by putting his name on the building. No doubt Sid would have viewed the building, with its big bay doors, as an airplane hangar. Its undulating roofl ine seems to follow the path of a balloon in fl ight.

Many visitors may wonder just who is this man, Sid Cutter. He was born Sidney Dillon Cutter in Albuquerque on May 9, 1934. He is the younger son of civil aviation pioneers William P. Cutter and Virginia Dillon Cutter, who founded Cutter Flying Service in 1928 to serve the fl ourishing aviation community. Sid’s middle name descends from his grandfather, Richard C. Dillon, Governor of New Mexico (1927-1931). The company trained naval aviators and military glider pilots at the West Mesa Airport, designated a Naval Air Training School during the Second World War. In 1947, as Americans returned to peacetime life, the company relocated to the Albuquerque Sunport where it continues to operate today.

At the southeast corner of the launch fi eld stands the Pilots’ Pavilion. Photo by David Dickinson, 2017.

Sid, and his older brother Bill, learned to fly airplanes while sitting on their father’s lap. Both soloed as teenagers. At age 21, Sid joined the U.S. Air Force. Second Lieutenant Cutter flew single-engine jets and four-engine cargo planes until 1960 when he left the service and rejoined the family business. He served as the company’s president for more than a decade as it continued to enrich aviation in the American Southwest.

With his never-ending enthusiasm for things that fly, Sid entered the magical world of ballooning in June 1971 by “accidentally” going aloft on the morning after a party in their Sunport hangar (a story for another time). He found ballooning to be like floating through the air on a magic carpet and devoted the rest of his life to the sport. As founder of World Balloon Corporation and as the chief instigator for the non-profit corporation, AIBF, he put Albuquerque on the map. His infectious outlook on life won him a worldwide circle of friends. As the years rolled on, Albuquerque enjoyed annual Balloon Fiestas, each better than the previous. By the 2010 Balloon Fiesta, Sid found himself in a serious battle with cancer. On a beautiful Easter Sunday

He found ballooning to be like floating through the air on a magic carpet and devoted the rest of his life to the sport.

Onboard with Sid are his two chase dogs, Sombra and Coco. (Photo by Bennie Bos, 2016)

afternoon in 2011, Sid and Jewel hosted a grand garden party, a last farewell with about 400 friends from all over the country, a last hurrah to celebrate the life of a ballooning legend. Sid passed away peacefully in his sleep early in the morning on May 21, 2011.

That same morning, Tom Rutherford, Sid’s faithful deputy at World Balloon, penned the following message (derived from Pilot Officer John Magee’s 1941 sonnet High Flight) to his longtime friend and the ballooning community:

“My friend, now, finally, slip the surly bonds of earth and dance the sky on laughter-silvered wings. Climb sunward and join the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, do a hundred things we have not dreamed of. And while with silent lifting mind you tread the high untrespassed sanctity of space, put out your hand and touch the face of God.”

Sid held some of the highest aviation awards, including the 1975 Fédération Aéronautique Internationale Diplome Montgolfier in service to sport ballooning and the 2009 FAA Wright Brothers Master Pilot Award in flight safety. He staged Albuquerque’s first balloon rally in 1972 – the Albuquerque International CoyoteRoadrunner Balloon Race – founded the world’s largest balloon club – the Albuquerque Aerostat Ascension Association – and organized the first two World Hot Air Balloon Championships, and in so doing established Albuquerque as the Balloon Capital of the World. He won the U.S. National Hot Air Balloon Championships in 1978 and 1986. He was inducted into the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta Hall of Fame in 1983, the Albuquerque Sports Hall of Fame in 1996, the New Mexico Tourism Hall of Fame in 1999, the Balloon Federation of America Hall of Fame in 2005, and the FAI Ballooning Commission Hall of Fame (now part of the Anderson Abruzzo International Balloon Museum) in 2010.

Sid marveled at how the Balloon Fiesta continued to outgrow its launch fields, which moved five times before taking up residence at a permanent location. It all started with that “First Fiesta” in a vacant lot at Coronado Center in 1972, then moved inside the State Fairgrounds racetrack in 1973 and 1974 before beginning its long march north. It occupied a former alfalfa field (Simms Field 1975-1980), a former gravel pit (Cutter Field 1981-1985), a landfill site (the first Balloon Fiesta Park 1986-1995) and finally presentday Balloon Fiesta Park, also once a former gravel pit.

The rest of the Balloon Fiesta Park story involves a mechanical engineer and a state senator. The engineer, Bob Ruppenthal, AIBF President (1989-90), was instrumental in acquiring a permanent launch field for AIBF. Bob met several times with Manny Aragon, then President Pro-Tem of the New Mexico State Senate, to find a way to fund the purchase of the land we now know as Balloon Fiesta Park. The original plan called for managing the property as a semiindependent organization under the control of a board with taxing authority. The final plan called for the land purchase to be funded half by the state and half by the city. The Governor was not interested in another state park, so it was agreed that the land would become a city park, administered by Albuquerque’s Parks and Recreation Department.

For the two months Balloon Fiesta Park is in use by AIBF, a legion of volunteers magically transforms the field into a giant grid,

Sid Cutter, President of Cutter Flying Service, in the 1960s. (Photo courtesy of Cutter Aviation)

Sid was most proud of how Albuquerque took to ballooning like he did and how the City committed to an annual Balloon Fiesta anchored to a permanent balloonport.

albeit a myriad of over 200 launch sites. At the south end is Corporate Village, the Hospitality Center for sponsors, and the Gondola Club for private guests. All along the eastern edge of the field, from the Sid Cutter Pilots’ Pavilion north to the Balloon Discovery Center, is Main Street with its long line of white vendor tents. In the year 2000, with the battle cry “1000 in 2000”, we pushed the park to its limit. It was Sid’s idea, and his alone, to fill the air with a thousand balloons. At the time, many thought he was nuts, but we successfully launched 1,003 balloons in three waves that year!

Sid was most proud of how Albuquerque took to ballooning like he did and how the City committed to an annual Balloon Fiesta anchored to a permanent balloonport. It was his dream, and it is his legacy. Today, he faces the launch field, always waving to his fellow aeronauts and the hundreds of thousands of balloon-lovers who stream by his perpetual bronzed likeness. Sidney Dillon Cutter was a legend; he filled our skies with colorful balloons and filled our

Sid and Jewel Cutter at Balloon Fiesta Park. (Photo by Paul deBerjeois)

ExxonMobil is proud to be part of the 49th Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta® as we reach new heights in New Mexico.

As one of the nation’s leading producers of oil and natural gas and a major operator in the Permian Basin, we are committed to providing the energy that powers modern life in a responsible manner. Environmental stewardship and community wellbeing are at the heart of what we do every day. Through technology and innovation, we help meet the world’s growing energy needs while supporting a lower-carbon future.