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).

With the safe landing of the last team – Sébastien Rolland / Vincent Leys – the 53^e. 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 all thankful for your flights which we could watch on the screens. We are looking forward to welcoming you safely back home.

Preliminary Results

These are the preliminary ranks of this year’s Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett:

1. FRA 1, Sébastien ROLLAND / Vincent LEYS
2. SUI 1, Kurt FRIEDEN / Pascal WITPRAECHTIGER
3. USA 2, Mark SULLIVAN / Cheryl WHITE

The official results will not be published before friday night (possibly saturday morning) because all the data will have to be evaluated in the pilot debriefing. Teams will not be back before friday. However, so far, we believe the ranking to be accurate.

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 fly “just” a little bit further. But that should not be an easy task. The sun will quickly heat the land and create convection and gusts will be challenging the pilots. Meteo in the area also needs to be monitored closely.

09.09.2009 0705: Team SUI 2 (Stoll/Mattenberger) made stand-up landing

A very memorable flight. Congratulations to the swiss pilots Christian Stoll and Walter Mattenberger for their great flight!

After 80:01 hours flight-time and a distance of 1179 kms (preliminary results) a stand-up landing marked the end of the journey across 4 countries.

Christian Stoll also is the record-breaking participant in the long tradition of the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett. No other pilot represented his country more often than Christian Stoll (21 times, 19 flights, 1988-2009). 

Credits http://www.ballon.eu/2009_coupe_eboard.html

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 fields within 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean.

Credits http://www.ballon.eu/2009_coupe_eboard.html

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 Bennett competitors (released to Belga by Eddy Allcock, with our thanks). This resulted in massive visits to our website that was out of order for some time. But that also we could fix overnight with help from Luc in Algeria.

The pilots found a solution to recharge their cell phones so we have re-established contact at about 18:00 hr this afternoon. The men packed the unharmed balloons this afternoon, so they are ready for transport. Normally transport will be arranged by AUT1 with lots of help from our Ambassadors. Tomorrow the police will escort the teams to Algiers, where they will try to catch a ferry to Marseille. Our chasing team was sent from sunny Alicante back to Marseille today. The 3 teams are well and safe and receive lots of help from all authorities. We want to thank you to everybody who helped us or tried to help us!    

Meanwhile the team USA2 Sullivan/White landed in Portugal but some other teams are still flying and starting their 4^th night in the air to try to win this fantastic race! We presume that all the balloons will land tomorrow morning and then we will know the winner of this tremendous and thrilling 53th coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett 2009. But we can say it already now: it was a difficult race and all the teams where FANTASTIC.

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. One crew is watching the other. The US team Mark Sullivan / Cheryl White is in the lead. They are very close to the cost, almost at the Spanish/Portugese border, on final approach for Faro-airport? Who knows?

The teams now need to check their speed versus the remaining distanced to the ocean or consider a night landing. We cross our fingers for a safe ending to the race.

Though, we would not be surprised for teams to enter the fourth (4!!!) night.

USA 3 (Cayton / Canders) finished their flight in Spain

We just (19:30 loc / 1730 UTC) received the confirmation about the landing of pilots Andy Cayton and Sam Canders. In almost 68 hours these two pilots flew about 1300 km straight-line distance from Geneva to the NW of Cordoba to the little village of Los Panchez.

Credits http://www.ballon.eu/2009_coupe_eboard.html

Luckily the locals are very helpful. Tomorrow we try to get the 3 teams together, and try to arrange an easy retrieve.

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 and their retrieve crews all through the day. In parallel, high-level contacts had been established with senior embassy representatives. The network was working perfectly.

We are very thankful for the immense level of support provided by embassies and consulats during today. Thank you very much.

Credits http://www.ballon.eu/2009_coupe_eboard.html

We wish the three teams good luck and safe landings!  

Ronny and Luc, we’re proud of you!