How quickly changing
situations are considered to be normal can be
seen from the reports written shortly after the
flight. Two month before the peaceful revolution
happened in the German Democratic Republic and
all the changes which came to the whole
communist block, things, that appear normal
today, were a sensation. Will anybody remember
in a few years, how completely the "Iron Curtain"
separated the people? How a sport, crossing
borders was put into chains?
One situation in this race makes us laughing,
looking back. The Swiss crew Spenger/Messner had
already crossed former Czechoslovakia, when they
decided to land behind the border at Poland. By
radio, they ordered their chase crew, to drive
to Poland. The Austrian observer, travelling
with them in the car, had no visa for Poland.
The ground crew thought, they might be back
immediately after recovering the balloon, so
they left back the Austrian on the
Czechoslovakian side of the border, to wait. It
is not important, that the wind turned, the
pilot had made a mistake in navigation, or the
borderline had a corner at this place because
they landed unfortunately not in Poland, but in
Czechoslovakia. The crew was now split, pilots
and observer (without knowing about each other)
in one, the chase-crew in another country. When
the chase crew wanted to travel back to
Czechoslovakia, the entry was not permitted,
because their transit visa had already been used
up. To return to Czechoslovakia, they had to
request a new visa from the Czech consulate.
It took two days, until they got a new visa from
Krakau. Then they could pick up the observer and
went for the pilots and the balloon.
On September 6th, 1989, the Austrian Aero Club
received a telex message from the Department of
Traffic of the German Democratic Republic, Head
Office Civil Aviation:
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
Concerning your request of June 29th, 1989, I
would like to advise you, that the entry of the
airspace and the landing on the territory of the
German Democratic Republic is permitted for the
competitors of the 33rd Gordon Bennett Balloon
Race between September 15th and 17th 1989, if it
is required by the meteorological conditions.
This was followed by some sanctions, but they
were quite normal and could be performed easily.
Doing this, the German Democratic Republic had
reacted positively on a request for the first
time. All the years before, the entry was never
permitted, due to "overcrowded airspace", if
they answered at all. About one year later, the
German Democratic Republic did not exist anymore.
The cheering about this good news came to a
quick end, when the headquarter of the US army
withdrew their permission from 1988, to enter
the ADIZ, the day before launch. (The ADIZ, Air
Defence and Identification Zone, was a strip, 40
kilometres wide, along the borders to the
communist block, in which ballooning was not
permitted). No begging by telephone from the
race officials could change this decision of the
mighty ones. It finally was American competitor
Joe Kittinger, retired colonel of the US forces,
who convinced his former comrades to change
their minds. A short time before launch,
permission for entry was received.
On the other side, now somebody of the
Yugoslavian administration felt ignored or
otherwise treated bad, on the day of the launch,
they sent the prohibition to enter or land.
Rumania also could not decide, to open its
borders, the Soviet Union was not even asked as
the organizers of the race considered it as
improbable to fly into their territories. So
entry permission was given for the following
countries of the communist block: German
Democratic Republic, Czechoslovakia, Poland and
Hungary. And that was exactly the direction, to
which the meteorologist promised, the voyage
would go.
When meteorologist Dr. Pümpel gave his prognosis
on the day before launch, only very optimistic
people believed him, because it was raining cats
and dogs. Many began to get used to the idea
that the race would be cancelled or postponed
for meteorological conditions for the first
time. This had happened never before although it
may have been appropriate in some years. Also
never before was the race launched in the high
mountains. Seefeld (1987) was, compared to Lech
am Arlberg, as being in a "hilly landscape".
Dr. Pümpel proved to be right. On Saturday the
rain stopped, and from noon on, the situation
clearly improved. At 6 p.m. the balloons were
inflated and almost no cloud could be seen in
the sky. It could begin. After some speeches of
the Major of Lech, Kommerzienrat Schneider, and
the Governor of Vorarlberg, Mister Purtscher,
the first balloon carried to the platform was
new D-COLUMBUS, finished three days before
launch and flown by Americans Joe Kittinger and
Bob Snow. On the tops of the surrounding
mountains the mountain rescue service
illuminated fires. Exactly at 8 p.m. the
American national anthem was played, at 8:01
p.m. the balloon lifted off. In a sequence of
three minutes the other balloons followed and at
8:40 p.m. the launch was completed. Still for a
long time the beacons of the balloons could be
seen in the sky over Lech, and many spectators
felt sand in their hair on the way home.
The drawn launch sequence at the "Schmelzhofwiese"
in Lech on September 16th, 1989:
| USA |
Joe Kittinger/Robert
Snow |
D-COLUMBUS |
| POL |
Waldemar Ozga/Piotr
Szary |
SP-BZR ‘POLONIA’
|
| SUI |
Gerold Signer/Silvan
Osterwalder |
HB-BJB ‘SOLVAY’ |
| GER |
Thomas Fink/Erich
Märkl |
D-AUGSBURG |
| AUT |
Josef Starkbaum/Gert
Scholz |
OE-PZS
‘POLARSTERN’ |
| USA |
Lawrence "Fred"
Hyde/ Dewey Reinhard |
HB-BJS ‘MOTOR
COLUMBUS’ |
| POL |
Stefan Makne/Grzegorz
Antkowiak |
SP-BZO ‘POLONEZ’ |
| SUI |
Karl Spenger/Martin
Messner |
HB-BFC ‘JURA’
|
| GER |
Helma Sjuts/Alfred
Derks |
D-CONTINENTALE
|
| USA |
Randy Woods/Gordon
Boring |
D-ASPEN |
| SUI |
Alfred Nater/Otto
Anderegg |
HB-BGN ‘BAD
ZURZACH’ |
| GER |
Volker Kuinke/Gustav
Vormbäumen |
D-EUREGIO |
On Sunday morning, hot air
balloons woke up the citizens of Lech with the
noise of their burners. They should have drawn
attention to the event the day before, now they
finished it for weather reasons.
At that time, the gas balloons were already
flying over Upper Austria heading east. The
meteorologist had forecast a wind coming from
the southwest in lower layers. Flying to the
northeast would mean the most possible distance.
But this wind was so slow and it would have
taken days to reach the Baltic Sea at Poland.
The experienced pilots had realized this soon,
and kept away from leaving the high altitudes
with the faster winds.
On Sunday evening, the first landing reports
were received in the competition center. The two
Polish crews had some language problems with ATC
at the airport of Vienna and landed not far from
there. Germans Kuinke/Vormbäumen had flown the
lower altitudes, were pushed too much to the
north and realized, that their chance was gone.
They landed that evening at Vilshofen in Bavaria.
American doctor "Fred" Hyde thought of the
health of his patients in American and was
afraid that his absence was not good for them.
He landed as soon as he saw Hungarian soil
underneath him. Randy Woods and Gordon Boring
came back to earth in Czechoslovakia northeast
of Vienna before nightfall, at the same time
Swiss Alfred Nater and Otto Anderegg were over
the airport of Budapest and finished their
flight there.
Six crews intended to fly the second night, but
two of them could not do it Gerold Signer and
Silvan Osterwalder from Switzerland had reached
the east end of Czechoslovakia in the fast layer.
It was 10 p.m. local time when they landed.
Another six hours longer our irrepressible Helma
Sjuts flew. In January she had become 70 years "young"
and her co-pilot, Alfred Derks was 31 years
younger. The reason for her landing was not a
problem of her age, the controllers of
Bratislava airport had ordered her to a low
altitude and then sent her up again. This had
used up a lot of ballast. Now she had three bags
of sand left and was ahead of the Carpathian
mountains. Her decision, to land in front of the
mountains for safety reasons, was right, even if
the landing had to be done in the middle of the
night. At Ostrava, former Mährisch-Ostrau, they
came back to earth in a field. There was of
course no help in the middle of the night, so
protected by the basket and covered with the
envelope, they slept till sunrise.
Monday morning saw four crews still in the air,
three of them already far down in Hungary. Joe
Kittinger and Bob Snow gave up after sunrise.
They made 809 kilometres and ranked 3. Joschi
Starkbaum and Gert Scholz had again (as often)
the best sense for the fastest winds. Before
noon, they were on the border between Hungary
and Romania, flying on was not permitted. 911,2
kilometres in 37 hours, no other balloon in this
race could have come farther. The fifth victory
in a row was safe. Thomas Fink and Erich Märkl
came close up to them, but two hours later.
Austrians and Germans went to the same
restaurant for lunch, while Karl Spenger and
Martin Messner were still in the air.
The result of Swiss Spenger/Messner shows, how
much slower the wind closer to the ground was.
They flew more than five hours longer than
Starkbaum/Scholz, but 180 kilometres shorter.
This was only good for rank 5. Their landing
adventure was described earlier.
On Wednesday the results were finalized. The
organization staff at Lech had done good work,
together with the outstanding performance of the
observers. On Friday, seven crews and the
officials met for the awards ceremony in the
hotel "Post". The Americans, who had travelled
home and two crews from northern Germany, who
considered a second trip to Lech to be too far,
missed one of the most solemn ceremonies. For
the ballooning in Germany, rank 2 for Fink/Märkl
was the best result since 1928, so for the
awards dinner even the President of the German
balloon-federation, Walter Müller, came from
Essen. The party ended after daybreak but nobody
felt sorry for the long night with friendly
meetings and talking among sportsmen of
different nations.
A Gordon Bennett Race, that can be compared with
those before the war, was over. It brought new
development in material and equipment to our
sport. Four completely new balloons with much
lighter fabric were put into service. The
distances and durations they achieved, prove the
quality of the material and the crews. The
lightest balloons, POLARSTERN and AUGSBURG, were
not at their limit, when they landed. They
transported quite a lot of sand from Austria to
Hungary and could have flown another day, if
Romania would have been open. Starkbaum/Scholz
as the faster ones, surely would have won even
then, they are absolutely the best. Thomas Fink
is the youngest in the leading group, he
provides hope for German ballooning in future
races. He talks about his flight to the Romanian
border:
First we tried, according to the strategy we had
chosen before, to fly low, to leave the valley
of the river Lech to the north. It worked slowly,
but it worked. 2 to 3 kilometres north of the
Lech it turned more and more towards a rock
face, so we had to dump ballast to stay clear of
the mountain. We climbed to 2900 meters ASL,
where we speed up. In a quite stable flight we
flew to the northeast across southern Bavaria
that night. Such a night in a balloon with full
moon over the Alps is always an unforgettable
experience. After the launch, the sky in the
west was still bright, in the east already dark,
the mountain rescue service had set up fires on
all the mountain tops around. Later we could see
the valley of Obersdorf and to the foothills of
the Alps. To the east, the mountain Zugspitze
was a good point for orientation and we soon
realized that we would pass it in the north. The
flight passed the town of Oberammergau, north of
Gmund on the Tegernsee, between Rosenheim and
Bad Aibling and north of the Chiemsee. Over
Seebruck, our logbook reads: 3:13 a.m., altitude
2880 meters, 20 bags of ballast, 28 kilometres
an hour in direction of 73 degrees, Salzburg and
Munich visible.
Crossing the river Salzach, we entered Austria.
At sunrise, the heading became exactly east. We
were curious, what altitude our balloon would
now reach by superheating, because we had
already been up to 3100 meters for a short time
at night. To our surprise, the maximum was 3380
meters and it seems that a new and well sealed
balloon has lot of advantages. We did not see
many of the other balloons at that time, but
radio contact with balloons from Augsburg and
the competitors of the annual "Autumn Balloon
Race" at Gendorf offer the opportunity, to send
greetings home and to our relay station. As the
bee flies, the track was heading straight
towards the town of Wiener Neustadt and the
atmosphere on board was good.
ATC at Vienna airport made a perfect work of
guiding the traffic around the balloons. At 2:20
p.m. we reached Hungarian territory at Drassburg
for the first time. Soon it went back to Austria,
across the lake of Neusiedel, then again Hungary.
Unfortunately, it became slower and turned more
and more left towards Czechoslovakia. We had to
think about our strategy for the rest of the
race. With 17 bags of ballast left at 5:10 p.m.
there was no question, to fly the second night.
Shall we stay high and fly on over Hungary
further to the east, or shall we try to reach
Poland by flying over Czechoslovakia, where we
would have more space to fly on? We decided for
the first option.
Crossing the border from Hungary to
Czechoslovakia was quite normal, as usual one
controller handed us over to the next one. A
surprise, when Bratislava Radar explained, that
visual flights at night were not permitted in
Czechoslovakia. At once I asked, if instrumental
flights with balloons are permitted. No problem,
so for the first time in my life, I flew
officially IFR with a balloon. When the sunset
at 7:25 p.m. near Nova Zamky, we had 11 bags of
ballast left and during the next night we needed
only three of them.
The track was now heading towards the High Tatra,
which Erich did not love so much. Suddenly, in
front of us cumuli were rising, obviously
created by cold air slipping uphill on the
mountains. To stay clear of them, we sacrificed
one bag climbing to 3300 meters where we
suddenly had a heading of 105 degrees. With this
track, we were over Hungary again some hours
later. At 10:45 p.m. the cross bearings with the
VOR as well as our transponder echoes on the
screen of Bratislava Radar indicated, that we
had reached the Hungarian border at
Balasagyarmat. If the flight continued like this,
we would have reached the Hungarian/Romanian
border, which we were not allowed to cross,
before sunrise. To avoid this, we descended at
2:30 a.m. to fly low and more slowly for a while.
This happened close to the Hungarian town of
Eger. Close to the ground, it was 20 to 30
degrees warmer than in the altitude, and soon
all of our equipment started to fog up and our
maps became damp. Slowly we drifted at some
hundred meters to the east-north-east. Estimated
15 degrees C, together with the humidity, was
felt by us as almost tropical. We believed, that
with a track between 110 and 70 degrees as we
had the day before, we could easily fly into the
best tip of the borderline.
So we climbed back to 2000 meters. After a
spectacular sunrise (in a movie it would have
been blamed as kitsch), we had to realize that
we were pushed more and more to the south and
there was no wind at any altitude bringing us
more to the north. So a little after 8 a.m.
local time we were already close to the border
and the chase crew was right underneath!
Having still seven bags left and flying over
perfect terrain for landing, I tried to gamble a
little. In fact, I managed to bring the balloon
a few more kilometres to the north making our
total distance a little longer. But we then had
to realize, that we would need more than the
whole day, to reach our optimal target. It also
seemed improbable, that a wind to the north, to
be found only in a layer of 200 meters thickness,
would keep the whole day. At 11:15 a.m. we
decided to land. Our balloon performed
flawlessly, as it did the whole flight. One pull
on the vent, we descended, the balloon
stabilized by its own. Another pull on the vent,
and we went down. Even for the landing without
using the trail rope, we did not need more than
three shovels of sand. To allow our chase crew
to see the landing live, we hovered for a few
minutes close to the ground. When the
Volkswagenbus appeared from behind the forest,
we landed at 11:45 a.m., very smooth.
Erich and I shook hands for we had both broken
our personal records in distance and duration. A
great hello also came from the chase crew, who
had surpassed a wearing long voyage. Packing the
balloon was routine, then we drove to the next
village, where observer Oliver di Giorgo could
get a stamp mark for confirmation before we
continued to the next larger town, Debrecen.
Soon our observer discovers a nice hotel and we
all are happy to have a shower we had missed for
so long. It is the same hotel, where Joschi
Starkbaum, Gert Scholz and their crew stay. At
least at the settlement after the landing, we
had levelled up with them. In the evening, we
all go by taxi to the Puszta for a typical
Hungarian dinner on a horse ranch (also
organized by Oliver), followed by ten hours of
deep, uninterrupted sleep.
The next morning we went to the police
department for immigration together with our
observer and a lady from the hotel as
interpreter. We were in a country which required
visas but we neither had one nor a registration
of entry in our passports. After the gentlemen
there, having read the permissions of their
government, we had got from the competition
centre in English and Hungarian, they were
convinced of our innocence, congratulated us for
our balloon flight and promised to organize the
needed documents as soon as possible. The guys
there were really very friendly and helpful, but
"as soon as possible" is measured with a rubber
tape in Hungarian offices. Not before noon could
we leave for home. On dead straight roads we
quickly passed the Puzsta for Budapast, where I
took a Lufthansa flight to get back to work
quickly. The crew continued for home via Vienna
and Munich.
I am sure, that with this flight we had come
close to the limits of our personal abilities.
Why does man do this, having a comfortable bed
at home? Any kind of sport, performed extremely,
is connected with a little madness. To
experience the nature at such a flight is a
compensation, as well as knowing, to be among
the best in the classic discipline of ballooning
in long distance flight.
Joschi Starkbaum also wrote a report of his
flight. It is shortened in already known
details.
We had changed the construction of our balloon
to "nettles", therefore another procedure of
inflation is required. It is much more simple
than the normal one, but the launch masters are
not used to it. So I had to supervise the
inflation by myself, which is not appropriate
before such a long flight, sleeping would be
better. But packing after the flight is much
more easy then. Before launch I managed to find
the time for a short sleep.
We were number five to take off. Looking to the
other balloons, we realized, that up to at least
1000 meters above ground there was no determined
speed. We were not completely filled and quite
light, so we had a quick climb and discovered at
2500 meters a drift heading 60 degrees with a
speed of 32 kilometres an hour, an optimal
situation.
Slowly the noise from the launch field calmed
down and we were surrounded by a wonderful
quietness in a mountain world illuminated by the
moonlight. For a while we just enjoyed the
overwhelming impression and did totally forget,
that we were in a competition. We followed the
valley of the river Lech. After two hours my
friend and co-pilot Gert Scholz took the
controls and I laid down to sleep.
When Gert woke me up and told me, that the wind
had turned more to the right, we were
approaching Rosenheim. On the easterly track it
went on over the Chiemsee, Oberndorf, the
Attersee and the Traunsee. So the wind was still
turning further to the right and a flight to
Yugoslavia became probable. Contrary to the
years before, we had no permission for entry
this year. So we decided, to descend to the
valley of the river Krems over Micheldorf, to
wait there, until the high pressure area,
proceeding to the east, would catch up to us, so
we could continue with winds from the west again.
The ground wind pushed us slowly to the north,
which met our intentions. After about two hours,
at sunrise, a yellow balloon appeared in the
west. Our bearings indicated, that it was flying
straight to the east. So we climbed again and
proceeded. First to the east, but then again
turning to the southeast. Over Gusswerk, the
wind turned back again, we followed the valley
of the river Hall heading directly towards the
Schneeberg.
Contacting Vienna approach we had realized that
our transponder failed. But with accurate
position reports we flew across Vienna airspace
and entered Hungary with no problems. Then
Thomas Fink, flying a little higher with his new
lighter build balloon AUGSBURG, approached our
position to within 1 kilometre. Together we flew
in the direction of Györ for a while, but did
not reach it. At Gabcikova we crossed the Danube
and were now in Czechoslovakia. At sunset
AUGSBURG, flying a little more to the north,
stood back more and more, until it disappeared
from sight. Now the wind turned right again and
at Balassagyrmatt we were again over Hungary.
A flight above the closed layer of clouds began.
The upper surface of the clouds was rough and
illuminated by the moon. From time to time
bulges did shoot up for 300 to 500 meters and
broke down again after 2 or 3 minutes. A
fantastique spectacle! After we had seen enough,
we slept alternately. Though we had managed it,
to spread the position reports, we had
originally been ordered to be given every 15
minutes, to one hour by the salami tactic, our
rest was not disturbed too much.
Two hours after we had passed Miskolc we could
see the earth again. Our chase crew was always
within the reach of our radio. While we were
flying over Czechoslovakia, they drove parallel
on Hungarian main roads, thus preventing two
border crossings. At 3 a.m. we were only 30
kilometres away from the Romanian border. We did
not want to land at night. So we descended
slowly which reduced our speed and improved our
heading to the left for a few degrees. Sunrise
found us only 10 kilometres away from the border
drifting towards the village of Ömböly, where we
could have landed. To our great surprise, we
found a wind from the west with 10 – 12
kilometres an hour just between 20 and 60 meters
above ground. Because we still had sufficient
ballast, we used this wind for the next two
hours and flew parallel to the border. Then the
wind became weaker and turned to southeast. No
improvement was possible anymore, so we finally
landed at the village of Batorliget, 3
kilometres from the Romanian border. Our
computer on board indicates 912 kilometres from
the place of launch.
Our excellent ground-crew was at the basket 3
minutes after our landing, the militia 5 minutes
later. The paperwork was done quickly, also the
packing of the balloon. With no local currency
in our pocket, we tried to find a bureau de
change, which we discovered 3 hours later in
Debrecen, 80 kilometres away. While Gert was
changing money, phoning and looking for a good
hotel, Thomas Fink and Erich Märkl came along
the street and told us, they had already checked
in at a good hotel. In this discipline they had
beaten us! And what’s about their landing
position? After studying the map we determined,
that we were ahead. Thomas was disappointed
first, but recovered quickly. And the others? –
No matter, we couldn’t change anything anymore.
As quick as possible we drove to the hotel to
have a shower. Then I wanted to lay down on the
bed just for a few minutes, but wake up more
than 8 hours later in the middle of the night.
Such a balloon flight must be quite strenuous.
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