‘MY LOVE SEAT IN THE SKY’

If you look into the sky and see a man flying around in what looks like a ski lift chair, don’t be alarmed.

Michael Glen knows what he’s doing.

Glen, 32, pilots a multicolored hot-air balloon called “Elevation II.” But instead of standing in a basket, he sits on a padded bench, strapped in by a seat belt.

“I also call it my love seat in the sky,” said Glen, who lives in Tucson.

On the ground, Glen gets around in a wheelchair after he was paralyzed in a rollover crash 11 years ago.

In the air, he’s the first paraplegic to earn a balloon pilot’s license, he said.

Glen, in town this weekend for the Colorado Balloon Classic, loves the peace and quiet of cruising the skies.

“You don’t get wind in your face because you’re part of the wind,” Glen said.

Glen comes from a ballooning family; both his father and brother fly their own balloons and are participating in this weekend’s festival.

“I was born in ’75. Two weeks later I was on my first balloon ride,” Glen said.

In 1996 Glen’s life drastically changed when his truck blew a tire and rolled on a New Mexico highway. Glen, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, was thrown out the driver’s window and broke two vertebrae.

Then a student at New Mexico State University, where he played volleyball, basketball and soccer, Glen had to adjust to a life without college sports. But Glen didn’t abandon his goal to become a balloon pilot and applied for his license a year after the crash.

“The FAA actually denied me the first time I applied for a student pilot license,” Glen said.

He kept working at his piloting skills and got support from other balloonists and contacts in the Federal Aviation Administration.

Glen earned his license in April 2006. By then he’d purchased the “Duo Chariot,” a metal-frame bench made in the United Kingdom that replaces the basket on a hot-air balloon.

An angled seat keeps passengers secure.

“It’s tilted in so your butt is basically forced in there,” Glen said. “Once they ride

in it they say they actually feel so secure in there that if it wasn’t with a seat belt they would feel secure.”

Today Glen travels to balloon festivals around the country and shares his experiences with children as a motivational speaker.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0274 or jennifer.wilson@gazette.com

31st ANNUAL COLORADO BALLOON CLASSIC DETAILS

The 31st annual Colorado Balloon Classic in Memorial Park ends today after a balloon ascension scheduled for 7 a.m. and a concert by the Colorado Springs Conservatory from 8 to 9:30 a.m. For more information visit www.balloonclassic.com. For more information about paraplegic hot-air balloon pilot Michael Glen, go to www.rollingpilot.com.