09.09.2009 08:00: Bulletin Day 4 Good morning! There is still one team in the air. The French pilots Sebastien Rolland and Vincent Leys are approaching the Portugese airspace these minutes. They are now airborne since more than 80 hours. Now, as the landing positions of all other teams are known, these two pilots will certainly try to benefit and... Read more ....

SWI1 is down… well done Kurt & Pascal,Eduard Spelterini would be very happy. But the race is still going on with two more teams aloft…   09.09.2009 0430: Team SUI 1 (Frieden/Witpraechtiger) landed safely  Kurt Frieden called to report about a safe landing. The two pilots had finished their race across Europe in huge eucalyptus... Read more ....

Sit down and enjoy… (by double-clicking on the playing movies you can watch them in fullscreen mode!) Balloons Gordon Bennett 2009 Start BEL1 (Van Havere / Van Geyte) Start FIN1 (Luoma / Mattsson) Start FRA1 Golden Eyes (Rolland / Lëys) Preparation Golden Eyes Start FRA2 (Villey-Desmeserets / Pelard) & Homage to Serge Cuhat Start... Read more ....

Team USA 2 (Sullivan / White) landed. Thank you for a spectacular flight! Team USA 2 landed in southern Portugal. Pilots Mark Sullivan and Cheryl White as well as the other three teams still flying are to be congratulated for one of the most tactical flights in the long tradition of the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett. A flight containing all the... Read more ....

  The Bel1 and Fin1 teams are in a private hotel of the Algerian Government. Everything seems OK and there is a great protection from the government. (5 policemen on and around the hotel room of Luc and Ronny). Today the balloons are on the news all over Algeria in prime time. Also in Belgium reporters have heard the news about the Belgian Gordon... Read more ....

08..09.2009 19:00 loc (tuesday): What a day! Thanks to these brave pilots, we on the surface could enjoy an exciting race on the screens wherever we are on the world. The Coupe Aéronautique is approaching its end. 6 teams are still flying. All these teams have achieved a distance of more than 1.000 kms straight line from their launch-point in Geneva.... Read more ....

08.09.2009 11:56 (tuesday): New Female World Record with 60:48h?! British pilot Janet Folkes is about to break the World Record for Women this very minute. The rules of the FAI require a 1% increase versus the previous record. That record was performed by Lesly P. Davies (USA) with passenger Carol Davis on Oct 10, 1995 in Albuquerque. Her flight... Read more ....

Tonight we received more information about the landing of BEL1 in Algeria. It seems that Algerian authorities were very helpful. Boats under the balloon approaching the shore, and police, the army (with loaded guns…), and medical services at the landing spot. After packing, our brave pilots had to go to a hospital for a complete medical check-up,... Read more ....

08.09.2009 09:00 (tuesday): Bulletin Pilots enjoyed another night while flying over Spain. This is the third sunrise during this Coupe and for most of them a bright, sunny start to another great day in this race. We had some direct contacts via satellite-phone and all teams sounded very confident. We know that some trackers had encountered technical... Read more ....

07.09.2009  – 21:15 loc: Bulletin 6 Teams are now entering their third night in European skies. Imagine a 1.2 m² basket where pilots work and sleep, develop strategies and ask for clearances, monitor the weather and discuss forecasts with their ground support teams. Bravo à tous les équipages. Well done – so far. The teams GBR 2 (Janet... Read more ....