Touch Down

The French team (FRA1) won the “53e Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett”, after 4 days of flight, landing near the airport of Lagos, in the extreme south-west of Portugal.Sébastien ROLLAND and Vincent LEYS have flown 1587 km,overtaking the Swiss 1 team of 17 km!  As required by the rules, France will be the organizer of the 55th Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett 2011. The 2010 edition will leave from England, whose team won the 2008 edition in Albuquerque (USA).

09.09.2009 12:00 loc / 10:00 UTC Team FRA landed in Portugal With the safe landing of the last team – Sébastien Rolland / Vincent Leys – the 53e. Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett came to an end. What an epic race. Bravo à lous les équipages. Pilots and teams well done. You all promoted gasballooning in the best possible way. We are... Read more ....

All teams safely landed now. FRA 1, Sébastien Rolland and Vincent Lëys, just confirmed safe landing in Portugal, Lagos Airport area. Congratulations to all teams!

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 ....

  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 ....

BEL1 landed very well in a melon field in the Algerian Azeffoun area. The pilots and the equipment are okay and this is also the case with the other teams. Only the Finns got a little bit bruised during the landing. Luckily the locals are very helpful. Tomorrow we try to get the 3 teams together, and try to arrange an easy retrieve.

Teams FIN and AUT landed in Algeria After many hours out on the sea and a time-consuming “battle” to find the winds to make landfall, these two teams finally made it. FIN (Olli Luoama / Ben Mattsson) and AUT (Gerald Stuerzlinger / Nikolaus Binder) are relieved to stay on a firm ground now. We have been in contact with the brave pilots... Read more ....

Bel1, AUT1 and FIN1 decided this afternoon to attempt a landing in Algeria. All official authorities know about the landing and we hope everything goes well. If somebody has connections or knows somebody near the landing spots, please help us! We do need local help for the retrieving etc. None of the 3 teams are familiar with landings in Africa. We... Read more ....