2025 Pilot Bios

N Debt

Chad Kerns

Lincoln, IL

Sponsored by

Chris Griffin - Country Financial

Years Flying Balloons - 10

When you are not flying, what do you enjoy doing?

Crewing for other pilots. Traveling. Watching the best sports teams in the Big 10 (Oregon Ducks)!!

Why did you become a pilot?

After crewing for many local pilots over the years they trained me to fly and the rest was history!

What do you find is the most challenging about flying a hot air balloon?

Finding places to land in the middle of summer. Around Lincoln, IL most country roads have farm fields planted to the edge of the road and many power lines along those roads. Options are few and far between in some areas.

Short description of something interesting that ballooning has allowed you to do?

It has allowed me to travel and meet awesome people from all over. Pilots and Crews as well as sponsors and event organizers. It has also allowed to fly passengers who told me they would never fly in a hot air balloon, sometimes those people jump right in and go again..Shout Out to Judge Goodwin!!

What do you most want the public to know/understand about hot air balloons and flying them?

Most of the time when balloons take off they do not know the exact location of where they will land because everything is depending on wind directions. So if you see us floating into a field or backyard it’s not an emergency landing it s a location that we could see from the air that was safe to land the balloon!