AUBURN -After hooking the propane burner to the top of the basket, Sarah Nichols lit the pilot light to test the burner.

With a dramatic whoosh, the flame came to life.

Sarah flicked off the burner, helped tip the basket on its side, then joined a crew holding the hot-air balloon as it filled on the Auburn Middle School field.

New Hampshire “Bearship” pilot Andre Boucher – a regular at the Great Falls Balloon Festival – left home early Wednesday to provide tethered rides and beginner balloon science lessons for one reason: Sarah.

“Sarah’s very special,” he said.

She knows hot air balloons.

Now 13, Sarah began volunteering, learning and flying when she was 5 and fell in love with ballooning at the first festival she attended. She and her afraid-of-heights father have been on the Bearship crew ever since.

“I love it. I don’t know how to explain it,” she said Wednesday.

It’s been her dream to become a balloon pilot, said her father, Ron Nichols. For years she’s been saving so she can get her own balloon when she gets her license.

Her dream is looking good.

She’s flown more than 100 hours and has mastered many of the skills, Boucher said. “She’s doing great.”

This November, when she turns 14, she’ll be able to get her learner’s license. At 16 she can get a private pilot’s license. She’ll have to wait until 18 to get a commercial license, which would allow her to fly customers.

At work on the school field Wednesday, Sarah released a small helium balloon to help her determine flying conditions. The balloon quickly rose and disappeared.

“The wind’s starting to pick up,” she said. Any balloon tethering, which means the balloon goes up but is anchored to the ground, would have to be done before the wind grew too strong. Soon her fellow students came on the field.

With Sarah and Boucher co-piloting, five excited girls climbed into the basket.

The teddy bear-shaped Bearship went up. The giggling girls looked down.

“It was cool,” said Miranda Martin, 14.

“It really felt high when I looked down,” said Lauren Ratsep.

“At the beginning it was really scary and I grabbed Duncan’s hand,” said Tori Couture. Couture and Duncan Gelder said they learned about flight, and that when the oxygen mixes with propane it gets cold, which creates condensation.

The balloon rides helped the team of 60 students learn team-building skills and some science: “understanding the buoyancy, what it takes to make a lighter-than-air craft,” said teacher Mike Brzezowski.

Asked how the tethering went, Sarah sounded like a seasoned pilot.

“It went pretty well. The wind could have been better,” she said.