Maj. Kenny Weiner remembers his first balloon ride in sharp detail: The wicker basket carrying him and his grandfather lifted so quickly off the ground he screamed to his mother he wanted out.

High in the sky over his hometown of Akron, Ohio, panic melted into bliss.

Weiner was no older than 5. "I was hooked," he said.

Ballooning was in his blood. His great-grandfather flew gas balloons for Goodyear, training future Navy blimp pilots in the lead-up to World War II. In the early 1980s, Weiner's grandfather and mother took up ballooning to pay homage to that heritage.

What began as a weekend pastime for Weiner's mother, Carol, soon turned into a commercial ballooning business.

"In the summers, my younger sisters and I would spend all day flying balloons. We'd take four or five balloon rides every day," Weiner said.

When Carol Weiner bought special-shaped balloons and began flying passengers them for clients?mh around the world, she often brought her children along. They flew balloons for Disney, floated over Niagara Falls, took off over France and Germany and New Zealand.

Weiner might have joined the family business if he didn't enjoy it so much. "I decided to keep it as a hobby."

But he still wanted to fly. The great-grandfather who'd trained Navy blimp pilots had also flown bombers in World War II.

"I decided to give it a shot after college," Weiner said. "I went to an Air Force recruiter and signed up to get a pilot's slot."

He wanted to fly cargo planes, where he'd have the company of a crew -- and the camaraderie he'd long enjoyed with others high above the earth.

Weiner's ballooning hours helped land him a C-17 training spot in the Air Force in 2001. For nearly a decade, Weiner deployed regularly in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Weiner spent nearly five years at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, and in 2007 headed to Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, where he helped stand up the 3rd Airlift Squadron.

"I spent most of the time overseas," he said. "Ballooning took a back seat."

Then Until three years ago, when Weiner arrived at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, where today he works as a C-17 instructor pilot and transportation planner for U.S. Transportation Command.

Scott Field had served as a Lighter Than Air military airfield from 1921 to 1937, Weiner said.

It was an ideal place to reconnect with the hobby he'd loved too much to turn into a career. Weiner traded his mother a Harley Davidson for a red, white and blue balloon called Independence, which he stores in his garage between flights.

Weiner flies it as often as he can -- usually two or three times a month in every season but winter -- taking up friends and family so they, too, can experience what he did as a child in Akron.

One of Weiner's most regular passengers is his 5-year-old son, Evan, who took to ballooning like his father and the three generations that preceded him.

"The one thing I'm certain about: It's the most peaceful and exciting experience you can have," Weiner said.

To be sure, you're floating above the ground in nothing but a wicker basket, he said. But except for the hiss of the burners keeping the balloon alight, all is silent up there, drifting so softly on the wind you wouldn't know you were moving except for the shift in the scenery below.

Maj. Kenny Weiner's flies his balloon, Independence, several times a month when the weather is nice.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Kenny Weiner

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