NATCHEZ — If you want to rally a neighborhood, all you need is a hot-air balloon.

When Ken Johnston sat down his balloon in the middle of Cambridge Heights Apartments Friday morning, the landing spot was not Plan A, or even B.

Johnston was one of approximately 20 pilots who flew hot-air balloons Friday morning to kick off the 2016 Great Mississippi River Balloon Race. The race continues today and Sunday.

The pilots took off from in front of the Alcorn State University School of Business headed toward a target at the Natchez-Adams County Airport. Prior to liftoff, Johnston said making it to the airport was not his No. 1 priority for the flight.

“I do this for fun,” he said. “And I’m extra cautious, so if we make it to the airport, great. But if I see a little spot that looks good to set it down before we get there, I might do that.”

Johnston has been piloting since around 1994, when he and his wife, Leigh, purchased their first balloon. The Johnstons live in Canton and have been making the annual trip to Natchez for the balloon race since purchasing their balloon.

The Johnstons first became interested in hot-air ballooning around 1989 when they served as crewmembers for a pilot at Greenwood’s hot-air balloon festival.

“(Leigh) was the one who really said, ‘If we’re going to keep doing this, I’d rather have a balloon of our own,’” Johnston said.

And so, Team HiLeigh Kentagious was born. The name came after the Johnstons hosted a balloon-naming party, and friend suggested the name, combining Ken and Leigh’s names.

The couple took the balloon up whenever they got a chance, enlisting their children, who were young at the time, as crewmembers.

“When you first get the balloon, you really try to get it out every weekend, if you can.” Johnston said.

Since then, the Johnstons have slowed down a bit, mostly taking the balloon up for special events.

Johnston enjoys the peace of floating about the Earth in a hot-air balloon.

“When I am up here, I’m really focused on what I am doing, so I like to really focus while I’m flying and reflect back on it once I’m on the ground,” Johnston said, eyeing the huddle of balloons on the horizon and scanning the ground for potential landing spots.

After nearly half an hour in the air, Johnston picked out a spot just off D’Evereux Drive behind the OEC restaurant. As he neared the ground, however, the landing spot looked less appealing than it had a few hundred feet in the air.

Johnston cautiously popped the balloon back up in the air and over, and slightly through, a line of trees. After determining he could likely safely land the balloon in between two rows of apartments at Cambridge

Heights without interference from nearby power lines, Johnston began the landing process.

As the balloon neared the ground, residents outside lifted their eyes to the sky to see the unexpected visitors about to land in their lawns.

Within a few moments of the balloon bouncing on the ground, residents ran to help land the balloon and hurriedly poured out of their apartments, cell phone cameras in hand, to see the commotion.

The HiLeigh Kentagious crew had been waiting at the previously picked spot, so the neighborhood residents helped hold down the fort, or rather balloon, until the crew arrived.

Once she arrived, Leigh noted that the crew had been waiting in “a nice, big open field,” playfully teasing her husband about the narrow landing spot he chose.

“Well then I wouldn’t have had all this good help,” Johnston quipped.