“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, N-898RS

Lucy was born in 2004, a hand-made flying work of art created for a great American pilot and hippie at heart, Rudi Sachenbacher.  The story of Lucy spans continents and decades. Here I try to tell her story, but the whole story actually began almost 20 years before she was built, back in 1985 when I was in High School... 

My childhood friend Andy Baker had gone to a Pink Floyd concert and came home with a rainbow-colored spiral tie dyed T-shirt souvenir. He showed it to me and I was amazed! The brightness of the colors, the way that the layers blended together to make it appear three-dimensional, it was mesmerizing. We stared and stared at this shirt, wondering how the artist had created such a thing. We analyzed, discussed, reverse-engineered, and finally believed that we understood how to make it. We bought some dyes from the local grocery store, some 100% cotton Fruit of the Loom undershirts from the discount clothing store and got down to work in my mother’s kitchen.

Our first attempt was a huge success. Though the dye we used was not very bright, the detail in our first attempt far exceeded that of the “professional” shirt from the concert. We were instantly hooked. The quest to make the coolest tie dyes in the world had begun! Over the course of the remaining years of high school we went deeper, refining our craft, finding sources for professional dyes, imagining and inventing tools that improved the process, bringing an analytical and scientific approach to the art of Tie-Dye. We dyed as often as we could and despite once starting a fire in the kitchen microwave, friends and family could see the results and were very supportive. 

As the finished shirts began to pile up, we realized that we should try to sell some of them so we could convert finished work back into cash so we could again make more, new and different pieces. This led to selling our wares at craft fairs, rock concerts, and at school. We dyed dozens of shirts in a single batch, trying as many variations in techniques as we could imagine. We discovered and developed a visual vocabulary of a new branch of the tie dye universe – the chromatic fade, the intensity fade, the switcheroo, straight pleating, chaos, different symmetries. But what was quickly clear to us was that the bigger the piece, the more captivating it was! We soon were scouring thrift stores for white 100% cotton bed sheets to transform into tie dyed masterpieces! Bed sheets were nice, but we wanted even bigger canvases so we eventually bought rolls of cotton muslin and sewed several lengths together to make unimaginably large tapestries. These tapestries were the peak of our creations, big enough to develop vast fields of interconnected spirals with fine gradations of color flowing through the webs of spirals. Our art was bold, unique, and expressive on a massive scale. It was incredible, but what was the next frontier? Where could we further expand the limits of our homegrown art form? 

When I went off to university in 1987 I brought the tie dye lab with me and proceeded to occupy the dorm kitchen (nobody ever cooked food there, ever!) continuing my creative exploration. After a short time, a significant portion of the student body was wearing my shirts, campus had become a very colorful place indeed. One fine day, a graduate student from Albuquerque NM, Jonathan Wolfe, noticed a particularly psychedelic shirt a mutual friend was wearing and was impressed enough that a meeting was arranged. I had made a tapestry for this mutual friend precisely sized to fill the biggest wall of his living room - which had particularly high ceilings. When Jonathan stepped into the house and saw the tapestry he jumped and his head almost hit that ceiling. I had never seen a reaction to one of my tapestries as strong as his; it took a good while for him to catch his breath and to be able to regain coherent speech.

We sat in the living room staring at the tapestry talking loud and fast, able to finish each other’s sentences even though we had only just met. He understood everything that I was explaining about how to make them, about the techniques that make them more psychedelic and more three-dimensional. Casually he mentioned that in Albuquerque there was this event called the “Balloon Fiesta” that he had been going to since he was a young boy and balloons were probably the biggest object made from fabric imaginable, and wouldn’t it be cool if we could tie dye a hot air balloon! 

It is a rare and precious thing when the correct elements come together for great things to happen, but this moment in time clearly was one of them. In an instant the dream of making tie dyed hot air balloons was born, but more importantly we also shared the desire, skills, enthusiasm, and sheer willpower to make the dream actually happen! Over the next years I taught Jonathan everything I had learned about tie dye and he quickly grew from an apprentice to being a tie dye master in his own right.  

Making a tie dyed balloon was our goal – every step we made was to develop the necessary skills, tools, and techniques to reach it. But making a balloon is very different from making shirts and tapestries. The dye is different, the material (Ripstop nylon) is basically waterproof and non-porous – imagine trying to dye a plastic bag-this gives a feeling for the challenge that we faced. But we knew it could be done and even though we were the first ones to try, we knew that we could figure it out and achieve the eye-popping results we imagined. We knew nothing about the ballooning world, making balloons, or flying balloons, just that if we made one that it would be the most amazing thing ever to be seen by human eyes, and the wish to be able to see it and not just imagine it kept us focused and motivated.

Around graduation we had overcome the last of the technical issues and were finally ready to start building our balloon. We figured out that instead of dyeing the entire envelope in one step, it was more manageable to build it as a mosaic of individual panels, one spiral per panel, which would then be assembled to create a larger more complex pattern. It was an ambitious plan because we had to predict and control the intersection points between adjacent panels if we wanted the overall pattern to be flowing and seamless! It would be tricky but this was the only way to dye something on this massive scale: the finished balloon would weigh at least 100 pounds and there was absolutely no way to handle such a large workpiece! In theory we knew how this would work, however we could only imagine what the finished balloon would look like - at the time computer technology was quite primitive, there was certainly no affordable hardware or software that could be used to model our idea, so we relied entirely on simple hand sketches and faith.  To make each individual panel we would spiral it into a thin flat circle, apply the dye and then bake it for 45 minutes at 190F in a pizza oven to set the dye. As the first pies came out of the oven, the colors were amazing, the spiral intersection points were behaving as predicted and we knew that we were on our way!  We just needed to stay focused and repeat the process many many more times!

After all of the panels were made the next step was to sew everything together. We both knew how to sew, but knowing how to sew and building an airworthy aircraft are two different things entirely. For this step in the process we needed the expertise of an experienced balloon-maker so we had enlisted the help of Brian Boland, ballooning icon and one of the most prolific homebuilders in the world (thank you for making the connection Rick!) Finally, after 72 manic hours of continuous sewing, Brian assembled the hundreds of small tie dye panels into a complete flying work of art, “Julia Dream”. “Julia” in reference to the fractal Julia Set which the pattern of the double helix spiral design evoked, and “Dream” because, well…

My heart was filled with joy seeing Julia Dream inflated for the first time, and like the first tie dye T-shirt I had made, the results were even more amazing than what I had imagined.  Beyond the magnitude of her sheer and undeniable beauty, I felt huge pride as I gazed upon our creation. To me she also represented the culmination of years of effort, following the dream, and always moving forward despite the many obstacles. About three years had passed from having the dream to making it a reality. This was a labor of love and the results were worth it – a whole new frontier of art had been opened, and we had achieved our goal: making the biggest most beautiful tie dye in the world! Such an incredible feeling!

Hilariously, neither Jonathan nor I had bothered to think about what came after making the envelope, like the fact that we were missing the basket, burners, fuel system instruments…  And of course neither of us knew how to fly a balloon.  Details, details.… But this was not a big concern for us – Rick Jones offered to be our hero test pilot, and other interested ballooning colleagues were willing and happy to lend the equipment and expertise we needed. At that time, our interest was just to make the artwork and implicitly understood that one way or another she would fly and we would be able to see her beauty and share it with the world!

After graduation I followed my career path in Laser light shows, living in Seattle for a decade then moving across the Pacific to Taiwan and then Singapore where I started my own business. During this time my art was on the back burner, and my focus was to work hard and become financially independent to become free to follow my many other dreams. Then in early 2004 I got a call from Jonathan who had met a balloon pilot who was interested in flying one of our tie-dyed creations. This pilot was Rudi Sachenbacher, and his vision was Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Rudi flies a lot – he attends many balloon rallies in the USA and also flies passengers commercially. His goal was to fly the most memorable and eye-catching balloon and thus give an extra dimension of fun to the people in his flying circles. We were glad to help!

Dyeing a balloon is a big job and Jonathan asked if I could take a break from my busy work schedule and come to Albuquerque where he had been storing all of the tools and equipment for balloon building. I flew to the US, and we began creating Lucy! Rudi had made the overall design, with colors that we have seldom used in our work – pinks, light greens contrasting with yellows and purple – it seemed strange to us at the time, but the more we looked at the renderings, the more we liked the idea and understood the Lucy would be different, but she would also be beautiful in her own way. Lucy would also be a type-certified aircraft, not an experimental homebuilt balloon like Julia Dream. This meant that all of the cutting and sewing would be done by the balloon factory; in this case it was Lindstrand Balloons US.

Making the balloon was so much fun! The Balloon Museum in Albuquerque offered us the use of their warehouse floor for making the main spirals – approximately 5 meter square assemblies of white balloon fabric. We needed the space and the museum was still collecting artifacts for their exhibits before opening to the public. So we actually made the spirals surrounded by balloons and gondolas spanning the history of ballooning, from paintings of the first hot air balloon built by the Montgolfier Brothers, to the world record-setting Jules Verne and the Double Eagle, and the spherical aluminum capsule used by the US Navy for their high altitude tests that actually put Albuquerque in the spotlight for future ballooning endeavors. Quite an auspicious environment for driving our creativity! We worked efficiently over several very long days and with many helping hands managed to make all 14 of the massive pleat pies that would become Lucy – a dozen huge pairs of spirals to circle her equator and two parachute tops (one spare, Rudi was already thinking ahead!)

It felt great to be dyeing again, the colors seemed brighter than I remembered (maybe it was the Albuquerque sunshine), and even after so many years since dyeing nylon, my hands remembered every detail about how to pleat the fabric and handle the materials. The dyeing process was done in Jonathan’s back yard using a custom-made double-boiler dye vat, designed to control the temperature of the dye and keep it at or below 185F, lower than the maximum operating temperature of the balloon when in flight. Over three weeks, with a brief interruption by a rare snow storm in the valley, we mixed dyes, color-matched, soaked, pleat massaged, rinsed, washed, hung, and admired these gigantic spirals that would soon become the next hand-made airborne artwork! Again, with the help of many hands, the process moved efficiently, at one point even the dog got (accidentally) tie dyed. And one fine day, the last spiral had been dyed. We were finished making another tie dyed balloon!

But since we were not part of the sewing process, the closest I came to seeing Lucy completed in Albuquerque is when we laid out all of the dyed panels at the park in a long row. We could appreciate the colors and the craftsmanship, but the solid pink and purple panels of the balloon were at the factory so we could not appreciate the overall feeling of the balloon design.  I would have to wait! The first time I saw Lucy standing up and inflated was actually in a photograph, not with my bare eyes: after finishing the work in Albuquerque we sent the dyed panels back to the Lindstrand factory where they sewed her together then delivered her to Rudi in Massachusetts. By that time I was back in Asia, back in work mode, and could not come for another visit to the US so quickly. But even from the photos I could see that Lucy was our best work yet – the colors were clear and bright, the spirals natural, smooth and relaxed. She was regal, yet whimsical, the free-spirited princess of a respected royal family.

Lucy immediately began the active lifestyle of the young lady that she was. Rudi flew her often, touring the Eastern US visiting many balloon events where Lucy quickly became a crowd favorite. Thousands of people fell in love with Lucy over the 15+ years that she was Rudi’s baby. I saw her with my own eyes for the first time back in Albuquerque during Balloon Fiesta and would see her there year after year, as often as I was able to take a break in October from my work schedule.

Finally in 2017 I decided that it was time to throttle back my manic work pace, to remember my other interests and goals besides business, and particularly to get back into ballooning! To get back into the mood I visited several weekend balloon events on the East coast of the USA to crew and fly with Rick, and of course to visit Rudi and Lucy who were also at these events! Lucy was famous by this time and it was so gratifying to see hear so many people (kids and adults) say that she was their favorite balloon. Body language shows only the truth, these words were not hyperbole. In the summer of this year I also travelled to France with Rick to the Mondale in Lorraine, the biggest balloon event in Europe, hosted by the descendants of Pilatre de Rozier, the first hot air balloon pilot who made that historical flight way back in November 1873. Rick has a fun and unique way of meeting people when he travels for ballooning: he does not bring an inflator fan with him – he always borrows one from another team. This strategy forces his team to be social and meet the neighbors on the launch field. Honestly at the time I did not know where Latvia was on the map, but the Sky Amazons team was young and energetic and looked friendly, plus they had a nice big fan! This was yet another rare and precious moment in time when elements combine and the power of fate overwhelms other conscious forces.

Meeting Inga that day set in motion many positive developments in my life. One of the most important ones was to help focus my goal to earn my pilot’s license. After thinking about it and talking about it for over 30 years it had become a habit – to only “talk” about it, but not actually take the steps towards the goal. Inga knocked me out of that inertial though pattern and in early 2018 she generously gave me a balloon, so I had no more obstacles. Through the spring and early summer I was receiving flying lessons in the US (thank you again Rick, Rudi, and Jordan Long!) and on August 28, 2018 I reached that goal as well – I earned my FAA private pilot certificate.

I was unaware of this, but over time Rudi had decided that he would prefer to fly a lighter balloon. Balloons are beautiful, but they are also big and heavy and making a single flight involves a lot of physical effort and athleticism to set up and pack the aircraft. I can only agree that having lighter equipment makes ballooning easier and less stressful. One fine afternoon after returning from one of my student flights I got a call from Rudi. He told me to sit down and had something important to ask me. Words that I never in my wildest dreams expected to hear came slowly and carefully through the telephone. “Jason, would you like to be Lucy’s caretaker? She has been such a beautiful part of my ballooning life, but now with my lighter balloon I do not expect to be flying her much and do not want her to sit unused in the garage. I would like to give her to you.” Writing these words right now I still can’t believe it.

Rudi is a hippie; he was the right age at the right time in America to be touched by the new consciousness and is one of these beautiful souls that you can only hope to share time and space with. His faith in me and Jonathan that we would create the art balloon that he expected (and paid for!), his vision that I, as a new pilot, would take care of his baby, treat her well, fly her as beautifully, still moves me deeply. I made a commitment that day to give Lucy a sweet second chapter, to restore her fading colors, and to continue to fly her with interesting people in beautiful places. I immediately registered her for the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, and flew her in the West and Midwest before and after Fiesta. In 2019 Lucy began to travel internationally, and I was able to bring her to Thailand, the Philippines, and France!

Then in 2020 Covid came and changed the world. Faced with so much uncertainty in the US, the only clear feeling I had was that chaos and pain was coming, probably not directly from the virus itself, but definitely from government action or inaction and from the reaction to all of it by a deeply divided American public. My phone rang again and it was Inga. “Latvia is a small country with a lot of fresh air. Maybe you would prefer to be here instead of the USA when travel becomes impossible? Our border closes in three days so if you want to come, come now.” Such a generous invitation, I felt like the luckiest person alive – to have such a friend thinking about my safety, willing to share her safe place with me, and accepting the possibility that weeks could stretch into months, and possibly years. Still, it was not an easy decision but with my brother and sister living close to my mother, I knew that they would all be safe and there was enough family support to go around. I booked a one-way ticket and entered Latvia the day before the borders closed.

Covid oddly helped get Lucy to Latvia as well.  Inga and I were supposed to join a balloon event in Thailand in February but couldn’t travel there because of Covid. But Lucy was already in Thailand waiting for us, all packaged nicely from her voyage from the USA. So instead of her returning to the US, she was re-routed to Latvia too. The many quiet months of Covid time presented me with the opportunity to continue her restoration. In the US I had already replaced the Purple Nomex, a row of badly faded pink panels and some tie dyed panels near the throat that had been patched. In the comfort and safety of Riga I finished dyeing replacement panels for the rest of the throat and dyed a whole new parachute for her as well! Since coming to Europe Lucy has accumulated over 100 more flight hours here in Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia, Poland, and France.

So this brings the story of Lucy up to today. Thanks to Covid her second chapter became a European chapter and a whole new continent is now being hypnotized by her beauty. From the day that the dream of Tie Dye Art Ballooning was born, I was always driven by the vision of flying the most beautiful balloons with the most interesting people in the most enchanting places in the world.

Dreams do come true.

I love Lucy!