2023 FAI Ballooning Hall of Fame Inductees Announced
April 20, 2023 - The 2023 FAI Ballooning Commission (CIA) Hall of Fame inductees were announced in Hasle Rüegsau, Switzerland, during the March 2023 plenary meeting. The Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, the home of the FAI CIA Balloon and Airship Hall of Fame, is delighted to announce that Dewey Reinhard of the United States and Phillip Dunnington of the United Kingdom are this year’s inductees.
The Balloon Museum extends its congratulations to the honorees and their families on being brought into this exclusive cadre of distinguished aeronauts. The museum looks forward to the 2023 induction ceremony that will be held at the Balloon Museum on Friday, October 6.
Charles “Dewey” Reinhard (b. 1930)
Dewey Reinhard was born in Pueblo, Colo., and had his first balloon lesson in 1974 in a balloon he had bought two years earlier. After co-founding the Ballooning Society of Pikes Peak in 1976, Reinhard made the sixteenth courageous attempt to fly a balloon solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1977.
In 1978, he organized and managed the first Colorado Springs Balloon Classic. This experience was the beginning of a lifetime's worth of service to sport ballooning with both the FAI CIA and the Balloon Federation of America (BFA). For example, he served on various rules committees as a gas balloon advisor and conducted management seminars for balloon event organizers.
Reinhard has logged more than 1,500 hours in balloons, most of which were flown during some 300 events over nearly forty years. As a competitor, Reinhard was U.S. National Gas Balloon Champion in 1980 and flew in seven Gordon Bennett races and five World Gas Balloon Championships.
Reinhard has received recognition over the years for his significant contributions to ballooning, including the prestigious Montgolfier Diplome for service to ballooning (1989), a BFA Distinguished Aeronaut award (1984), the BFA President’s Award (1986), and the Shields-Trauger Memorial Award (1996). Reinhard is also an inductee of the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame (1983), the Colorado Springs High School Alumni Hall of Fame (1985), the U.S. Ballooning Hall of Fame (2011), and the Colorado Springs Sports Corps Hall of Fame (2016).
Phillip “Phil” Graham Dunnington (1947- 2021)
Phil Dunnington’s first ballooning experience was a hot air balloon flight with Don Cameron in 1971. One of the pioneers of ballooning in the United Kingdom, Phil co-founded the Dante Balloon Group in 1971 and the Bristol Balloon Fiesta in 1979.
Dunnington was a ballooning instructor, examiner, and inspector. He served as Chairman of the British Balloon and Airship Club (BBAC) Technical Committee from 1982 to 2005, the Western Region from 1986, and the Examiners Panel from 1989. He worked closely for many years with the European Aviation Safety Agency to establish new licensing requirements which led to the foundation of the European Ballooning Federation.
Dunnington was sales director for Cameron Balloons, UK from 1985 to 2002. He established commercial ballooning operations in Chile, Myanmar, and India.
Dunnington won the British Long Jump in 1991, flying 221 miles. He was in the first team to fly a hot air balloon over the Northwest Passage in an open basket in 1999, together with David Hempleman-Adams, breaking two world records. The BBAC awarded him the Adams Sparks Trophy in 2011 and the Debbie Warley Trophy in 2015. The culmination of his life-long passion for aviation was his appointment as the General Aviation Advocate for the British Department of Transport in 2019.
One of the most experienced commercial balloon pilots in the world, Dunnington holds the world record in having flown in 127 countries. He logged more than 2,600 hours in 3,923 flights. This included flying a total of 745 different balloons and airships built by virtually every manufacturer in the world. He was the first to fly a hot air balloon in Kenya (1972), Malawi (1973), Jamaica (1975), and Iceland (1983).
Despite having been diagnosed with leukemia in 2014 he would never miss a good pint in a pub nor the chance to fly in a new country. In 2017, Phil and his wife Allie became the first to transport a balloon in a vintage Beech 18 and fly their balloon in Greenland and Cuba. Phil passed away in Jordan in 2021.