It was a double jubilee, the 30th race 80 years
after the first launch in Paris in 1906. The gas
balloon still flew the skies, but how much else had
changed in air traffic! The year 1985 had been the
year of catastrophes in civil aviation, in eight
crashes 1359 people lost their lives, 520 alone on a
flight of Japan Airlines from Tokyo to Osaka. 1986
began with another catastrophe. On January 28th, US
space shuttle CHALLENGER explodes a few seconds
after take-off at an altitude of 17 kilometres,
causing death to its crew of seven and stopping this
successful NASA space program for years. All of this
proved already, that technological progress had
reached the limits of human capability to rule it,
but at the end of April, this became even more
evident. The explosion in the Soviet power plant of
Chernobyl changed the world and the thinking of
mankind. This also influenced the Gordon Bennett
Races, for the Americans were represented by only
one team and Poland unfortunately stayed away
totally. From the race itself, the air sports
magazine of Austria shall report.
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The 1986 Gordon Bennett Race was untypical: Normally,
one has to save ballast, stay aloft as long as
possible to cover a long distance. This year, the
race was more like a maximum distance with scoring
area, it was necessary, to cover the longest
possible distance before crossing the border to the
Socialist Republic of Czechoslovakia. So this race
became quite exiting, also for the spectator on the
ground.
Because of the victory of Starkbaum/Scholz in the
year before, when the Mediterranean coast also had
put an early end to the race after the launch in
Geneva. The Austrian Aero club was host this year
and event director was Wolfgang Gruber. The launch
on the exposition park in Salzburg.
Friday, October 17th, 1986, 4 p.m. first briefing.
After wonderful, bright weather the weeks before, a
change, which might influence the start was
forecasted. Second briefing, Saturday, October 17th
at 9 a.m. A first decision is made. The possibility
for launch is given, even with the fog present.
Launch preparations are made and sand bags are
filled. At 1 p.m. the next briefing. Decision is
made to launch, the balloons begin with inflation.
At 8 p.m. the last briefing and latest weather
information: Ground-fog, but clear sky, full moon.
Only the wind direction is still unfortunate: Wind
from the west, probably turning to the north, that
means in the direction of Czechoslovakia, which
unlike Yugoslavia or Hungary, had not permitted
balloons to enter or to fly over its territory. So
all hoped for a drift to the east and a window to
Hungary. Ten p.m.: Launch of 12 balloons (9 in the
race, 3 out of competition) from five nations in
five minutes sequences.
An impressive image, the balloons ready for take-off
illuminated by the floodlights. A lot of spectators
have gathered. The launch sequence had been drawn at
the first briefing. Every balloon is launched from
the same place – when a balloon had taken off, the
next one is carried to the launch platform, and
under the sound of the national anthem they head for
the sky.
Then, for those who stood back, watching the race, a
long wait began. Balloons and competition centre had
contact with ATC, and the balloons were equipped
with transponders. The first information came in at
4:30 a.m.: Surprisingly with quite different
position reports; while the most moved exactly to
the west, towards Lower Austria, there were also
position reports from the Mühlviertel (Mill-Quarter,
a county of Northern Austria) as well as from
Germany. During the morning, it came out, that the
wind was not with the pilots, the window to Hungary
could not be reached and the border to
Czechoslovakia stopped the hunt for distance. The
landing reports of 10 balloons had come in, but
people waited until noon for the Starkbaum and the
American Levin reports. Then after 5 p.m., with
beginning of darkness, their landings were also
confirmed.
Below the landing times, landing places and flight
tracks of the different balloons:
Jojo Maes/Wulf Bergner, Germany, 6:06 local in
Affetschlag/Bad Leonfelden in the Mühlviertel, close
in front of the Czechoslovakian border, after a
flight via Oberndorf, Burghausen, Passau,
Mühlviertel; "iron curtain" well visible because of
strong illumination; landing at first daylight.
Peter Peterka/Werner Pfenninger, Switzerland,
landing 7:08 UTC in St.Michael am Bruchbach near
St.Peter in der Au, Lower-Austria. First fast flight
to the east via Thalgau (22:40), east of Moon-Lake(23:18),
south of Gmunden (0:45) and Grünau im Almtal (01:12)
in altitudes up to 1800 m above sea-level, then to
the valley of river Enns between Weyer and
Altenmarkt (02:50), then a longer stop in this area
and final decision to land because of rising fog.
Silvan Osterwalder and Gerold Signer from
Switzerland landed at about the same time in the
same area: 07:15 UTC at the carthuse Gaming.
Germans Thomas Fink and Erich Märkl also drifted
over Thalgau, Attersee, Traunsee, Windischgarsten to
the east to St.Valentin, which they reached at
08:37, but then they turned north via Perg in the
direction of Czechoslovakia, so they decided to land
before reaching the border area, landing at 11:38
UTC in Schirrmannsreith near Geras.
Karl Spenger and Martin Messner, Switzerland, Gordon
Bennett winner from 1984 and among the favourites,
also landed at 11:30 local, close to the Czech
border at Roschitz near Pulkau in the northern part
of Lower-Austria and had covered the longest
distance at that moment.
French Jean Jacques Muchery and Thierry Villey did
not reach these distances, for they landed at 13:30
UTC at Wiesing near Zell on the river Pram in the
vicinity of Ried im Innkreis (Inn-Circle, another
county in Austria).
Not to the east, but first to the west and later to
the north flew the Germans Carlo Schröter and Hans
Peters: Without ground sight (fog) they passed
Oberndorf, Altötting, Eggenfelden and Landau in the
direction of Straubing, then via Regensburg and
Burglengenfeld to Fraunberg near Schwandorf. Landing
at Fraunberg, Bavaria, at 13:51.
Joschi Starkbaum and Gert Scholz drifted east and
then had a stop for several hours, until they could
continue east. Starkbaum finally managed, to avoid
being pushed northwards too early, but also he could
not catch the window to Hungary. Landing at 16:20
UTC at Paasdorf near Mistelbach and so again longest
distance and a new victory.
"Lost" for some time was American David Levin with
his co-pilot Frank Rider, he landed at 16:55 UTC 300
meters north of Rust in the Field of Tulln.
This ended a difficult, but also exciting and the
shortest Gordon Bennett race. By the new victory of
Starkbaum/Scholz the race will be held in Austria
again next year, then probably from Carinthia (this
turned out wrong, it became Seefeld in Tyrol). For
Starkbaum/Scholz this is the chance, to win this cup
for the third time in a row to gain final possession
of this challenge cup with so much tradition. For
the Austrian Aero-club this is quite an expensive
prospect – in this case they would have to sponsor a
new cup.
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So ended the report from the Austrian Air sports
magazine. How this race was seen by somebody, who
was only involved in it from far away, is told below.
The author was in charge as coordinator of the
German teams, he had to inform brides, wives, and
other relatives, who stood at home as quick as
possible, about what happened, but also assure
contact between ground crew and pilots, if they had
become lost for any reason. (Mobile phones were not
very common and very expensive at that time).
Sunday morning, 7 a.m., the phone rings for the
first time. The retrieve of GERMANY 2 reports: "The
balloons have launched at night, GERMANY 1 has
probably crossed the border to Czechoslovakia, we
had listened to radio calls with ATC Munich and
Prague, which may indicate this. GERMANY 2 is in the
area of Steyr, he will land at Enns, to keep clear
of the border."
What is to do? – This report does not seem confirmed
enough, to chase the staff of the German embassy at
Prague out of their beds on Sunday morning, 7:15
a.m. So first of all, a phone call to the
competition centre at Salzburg! Nobody is there.
After several efforts in vain, AIS in Vienna is
called. They should know it, if a balloon escapes
across the border. At AIS, it is like in an anthill,
finally somebody, who feels responsible for that, is
on the phone – he knows of nothing, but promises to
look after it at once.
A second call 20 minutes later. Thanks goodness, all
clear. Even if GERMANY 1 is unknown there, they have
a landing report of a D-GATZWEILER at 5:09 near Ried
im Innkreis. Also, there is a D-GEROLSTEINER in the
air above Straubing as well as a D-AUGSBURG near
Ottenschlag, so no border crossing.
By telephone all those, who are interested in these
news, are informed. Then waiting for hours. Finally,
at 3 p.m. D-AUGSBURG reports back to earth. They
have landed two hours ago at Geras in Lower-Austria,
and there is a lack of phone boxes in this area.
They could not have gone further. From the landing
field there are only 5 kilometres to the border
river Dyei (known as Thaya in Austria). It is all
fine, but Ried im Innkreis can’t be the correct
landing-place for GERMANY 1. They had radio contact
after 5:09, and if they had not crossed the border,
they must have landed very close to it.
How did AIS Vienna get the false landing-report?
Calling there once again? Let’s wait, it will all
come out. They have landed, that was sure, and in
the worst case, they will survive a night in a Czech
prison.
The next call comes in at 8:15 p.m. D-GATZWEILER is
on the ground, 300 meters from the border fence at
Bad Leonfelden. We take a deep breathe, everything
came out fine, all balloons have landed. The result
does not seem important at the moment.
How have times changed! 50 years ago, Carl Götze/Werner
Lohmann flew from Warsaw to Karelia in Russia in
33:45 hours. Today, 13 hours and 220 kilometres was
the limit because of different ideological opinions!
A little spark of hope and improvement is already
there, even if nobody managed a permitted flight to
Hungary, Yugoslavia or Rumania this year.
Monday morning, 10:30 a.m. – there they are! Our
bridge head in the balloon club of Salzach-Inn,
engaged press manager Gernot Jauernik, has got the
results. The landing report from Ried im Innkreis
came from French Jean Jacques Muchery and Thierry
Villey while D-GEROLSTEINER was above Straubing and
fought its way along the ADIZ up to almost Nabburg.
As we found out later, he never exceeded an altitude
of 850 meters, thus flying a completely different
direction.
Two items in the results have to be commented on in
this race of 1986. Balloon DEUTSCHLAND 1 (D-GATZWEILER)
was penalized according to the rules by a
subtraction of 30,4 kilometres of his covered
distance. The balloons were not permitted, to touch
a belt, about 5 kilometres deep, along the Austrian
– Czech border. The second point is in the distances:
Here, the organization worked very accurate and
measured the covered distance down to three decimal
places. (Exactly to the meter). So baskets normally
have a size of 1,20 to 1,50 meters, they must have
taken the middle of the baskets ground floor for
measurement. Unfortunately, the landing times had
not been fixed in the same manner, so the times in
the air could only be calculated by the reports of
the competitors.
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