Biography
of Your
Pilot
Jon Radowski,
commercial hot air balloon pilot and owner of NJHotair.com, has been
involved in ballooning for basically his entire life. At the early
age of two, his parents began the ritual of bringing him to the local hot air balloon festival in
New Jersey and thus commenced his obsession. Who knew it would go so
far!
Jon finally
had an opportunity to take his
first flight ten years later in July of 1994 at the New Jersey Festival of
Ballooning. In the ensuing years, he began the process of flight
instruction, which garnered him his FAA Private Hot Air Balloon
pilot certificate at the young age of 17.
While still a junior in
high school, his dreams of building his own balloon were fulfilled
with “Oscar,” his homebuilt one-person recycling bin balloon.
That was a sure step up from the tissue-paper model balloons he had
been constructing in the past!
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A young Jon at
the 1987 NJ Festival of Ballooning |
After
graduating high school, Jon earned his Commercial balloon pilot
certificate at age 19 and went on to become a full-time balloonist. Jon has flown in
over a dozen states in the USA and often travels to balloon festivals
and other events in the Northeast and well beyond.
So
far, Jon has flown in Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New Mexico,
New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Vermont!
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With over ten
years of experience piloting all makes, models, and sizes of hot air
balloons, he is already a very accomplished and technical pilot. A
perfect safety record is testament to his careful, calculated approach
to flying.
Skilled in
precision ballooning, Jon can use the winds at different altitudes
to direct his balloon to a target many miles away. This talent of understanding and harnessing the breeze to
his advantage has landed Jon in the top rankings at many balloon
events he attends.
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Jon leads the
178-foot long Patriot back to its transporter cart.
Teri DiLibero photo |
Jon is
currently the primary pilot of the Space Shuttle Patriot hot air balloon
(website).
As the tallest special shape hot air balloon currently flying in the
world, Patriot towers to an impressive 178 feet and is nearly 40%
larger than the real-life Space Shuttle Orbiter!
In addition to
his Shuttle proficiency, Jon has even flown and logged “burner
time” on other special shapes such as the Energizer Bunny, US Flag
Balloon “America One,” Old McDonald's Farm, Brut Actif Blue cologne bottle, United
Van Lines truck and Humpty Dumpty, among others. He also has
practical experience behind the controls of single-engine planes,
helicopters and even different types of helium and hot air airships. He has aspirations
to add all these ratings to his pilot certificate sometime in the
future.
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| A 'slightly
older' Jon at the NJ Festival, circa 1990 |
Continuing
his meticulous quest for quality craftsmanship, he has constructed a
number of hot air
balloons so far, and has no plans to stop designing, building and
repairing balloons anytime in the foreseeable future.
Some
of Jon's other interests, practices and vocations include web
design, graphic design, illustration, photography, electronic music
production, filmmaking, computer-assisted design, writing and many other
active pursuits.
Recent Press
Newark Star-Ledger;
Sunday, July 13, 2003:
