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Following the victory of Volker Kuinke and Jürgen Schubert in the 1991 race,
Germany got it’s first chance since 1912 to host a Gordon Bennett Race again.
This honour found the ballooning commission of the German Aero-club quite
unprepared. In the past years, the dominance of other countries in this race
had been too strong, the Austrian team of Starkbaum/Scholz seemed to be
unbeatable, so nobody reflected seriously about what may happen if this
series of victories would be interrupted one day. Suddenly, this victory
happened and now it was time to act. A launch location was found quickly and the reasons for it were very
plausible. Tradition played a minor role, but using the same place as 80
years ago could offer some more advantages. In 1912, it was a highly
productive gas factory, which was the deciding factor for the Cannstatter
Wasen, but also the long distance to the sea, which would allow long flights
to natural boundaries. This also counted in 1992, but the main reason was
the active balloon club of Stuttgart, strongly supporting the idea, where
everybody fulfilled their duties carefully and accurate. Where else can you
find something like this? 70 club members not only worked hard for several
months before launch, but also were on duty at the day of the launch. This
was aided by the open-minded attitude about sports by the city of Stuttgart,
which provided many kinds of assistance. THW (emergency services), Red
Cross, Fire brigade, all were present with help. The "Deutsche
Freiballon-Sportverband", hosted the race but was obliged to thank the
balloon club of Stuttgart, the sports office of the city council and all the
other institutions.
The date of the launch, September 19th, created some discussions and was a
little mysterious. Most of the previous races had been launched in the fall
close to a night of full moon. These nights have advantages; they make
navigation easier and a landing at night safer. But in the age of GPS and
other electronic equipment, the full moon does no longer play such an
important role for navigation. For night landings, to be performed only in
extreme emergency, strong beams are on board, to light the landing field.
These are also helpful if clouds cover the moon.
In 1992 full moon was on September 12th. Why then the launch a week later?
This date came from external forces. The rules of the Gordon Bennett Race
only permit the short period of 12 month for the organizing national
aero-club. This means, that the dates for other competitions are already
fixed. On September 12th, the European hot air balloon championships in
Belfort, France had not finished, and when the date had to be fixed in
September 1991, nobody could tell, how many pilots would like to compete in
both events. For the next night with full moon, October 2nd, the world
championships in gas ballooning had already been scheduled.
Looking back, the selection of place and time weren’t bad. The weather and
the wind direction were good, but the wind was a little slow. You can’t
always request the best.
The press conference on September 10th was very good. Local press were
present, but also the TV station of southern Germany and the specialist
journals. The "Adler" (eagle), monthly journal of the air sports community
of the state of Baden-Württemberg published a picture of the Gordon Bennett
Race of 1912 on its front page on that day and the official bulletin of the
city of Stuttgart printed an excellent article with picture about the race.
However the highlight was 88 year old Stuttgart citizen Eugen Raisch, coming
to the press conference to tell his eyewitness experience 80 years ago, when
he was on the launch field in his fathers hands and saw the balloons rising
towards the sky with a farewell from King Wilhelm II. Of Württemberg.
The day of the launch came closer. Until the Friday before the launch, it
was Indian summer; pure sun without a single cloud in the sky. Meteorologist
Dr. Hafner of the German Meteorological Service at Offenbach announced the
passing of a small front on Saturday morning. Behind that front, good
conditions would return. Nobody would believe that on Saturday morning,
because of a thunderstorm and heavy rainfall. But the meteorologists were
right, as at noon on the sky started to clear up. The time lost created by
this tricky weather could be made up due to a generous time schedule. At 6
p.m. all 17 balloons stood on the field inflated. Lewetz/Wagner from Austria
were present with a brand new balloon as was Makne/Antkowiak from Poland.
Both balloons were nettles, the same construction as the "Polarstern" of
Starkbaum/Scholz. Levin/Herschend from the USA also had used the same model
for the previous two years.
Aged mister Eugen Raisch also had found his way to the Cannstatter Wasen on
the day of the launch. Tears of emotion came to his eyes, when one balloon
after the other lifted off from the launch platform to the sounds of their
national anthems. It was a moving atmosphere no balloonist or spectator
could resist when the music corps of the Baden-Württemberg police played
farewell to the balloons.
The low wind speed over the field prevented a quick launch sequence. Several
extra minutes had to be made between the balloon launches, to avoid
collision. Although these breaks had an advantage, as they increased the
solemnly of the whole ceremony.
It became a long flight. First landing reports did not come in before Sunday
evening by French Hennequet/Leys and British Harris/Wilkinson. A little
later, Heinz Brachtendorf and Helma Sjuts also had finished their flight.
All three balloons had landed in the Czech Republic before nightfall of the
second night.
The wind now turned a little more south, but slowed down considerably.
Nevertheless Poland could be reached. Volker Kuinke/Jürgen Schubert landed
there on Monday around 1 p.m. They were the furthest north of all balloons
as obviously they wanted to repeat their strategy from the year before, but
it didn’t work out so well this year. Usually, 808 kilometres in more than
43 hours was often enough for victory as in previous races. Now, this
distance was just good for a 5th place rank. Swiss Karl Spenger/Christian
Stoll had finished flying on Monday morning; their fellow citizens Rolf
Sutter/Kurt Frieden and Jaques Soukop/Alan Fraenckel from the American
Virgin Islands did the same during the next few hours. All of them had used
the more northerly drift, comparing times and distances of Kunike, Sutter
and Soukop shows that significant progress was no longer possible.
Obviously, it worked a little better for those balloons, which had used a
more southerly track. Swiss Signer/Osterwalder stayed in the air just one
hour longer than Kuinke/Schubert, but made 43 kilometres more. On the other
hand, this trend could not be carried too far as Americans Wallace/Senez
struggled in 47 hours to get past the new airport of Munich to Senice in the
Czech Republic, with a final distance of "only" 592 kilometres.
On Monday evening the landing reports of six balloons were still missing.
Officials still waited for phone calls from the two Austrian teams, the two
teams from the USA, the Polish crew and Willi Eimers/Bernd Landsmann. Nobody
could draw any conclusions from this. Just to phone out of Poland is a great
achievement. Interesting however was the fact, that all missing balloons
were of the nettles or lightweight type. Willi Eimers still dreamed of
reaching the Baltic Sea near Gdansk, but soon realized that this had become
impossible, when his balloon made just two kilometres in one hour.
As it later turned out, all balloons except one had landed. And this was
good, because now the wind continued turning and speeded up, but the
direction was wrong. Any continuation of the flight would shorten the
distances already achieved.
Makne/Antkowiak were the luckless individuals who were blown back. Short
before sunset on Monday they were just a few kilometres behind the eventual
winner. When the wind turned during the night, they could not land without
danger. So they flew to the Northwest, and their distance decreased every
minute.
On Tuesday morning they landed at Ogrodnica in the area of Wroklaw, former
Breslau, 584 km from Stuttgart as the bird flies and ranked 11. But their
misfortune wasn’t over. The new envelope on its second flight was almost 80
to 90 percent empty, when an explosion tore it to thousands of pieces.
Obviously, the conductivity of the new fabric was still too poor. And to add
to that, on their way back, the chase car went into a skid and ended up on
its roof as a write-off. It was good fortune, that none of the passengers
were seriously hurt. For the awards ceremony on Saturday, 26th, they were
back in Stuttgart. A special performance after such an adventure.
Traditionally, the competitors should report by themselves now at this
place, first the report of the winner, David Levin, published in BALLOONING,
winter 1992:
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Article: DOUBLE VICTORY "THERE ARE TWO OCCASIONS WHEN I
LOVE TO HEAR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM. FIRST IS UPON
RECEIVING A FIRST PLACE TROPHY, AND SECOND IS
DURING AN OTHERWISE SILENT ASCENT INTO THE NIGHT
FOR A GORDON BENNETT ADVENTURE."
Article by David Levin
as Published in 1992 BFA Ballooning Magazine
From Collection Don Piccard
My first Gordon Bennett was with Frank Rider in
1985. We were launched into the night from
Geneva for a low level flight down the Rhone
river valley to finish fourth. Although the
flight was short in both distance and duration
for all competitors, it was exciting enough for
Frank and me, two very inexperienced gas pilots. My second Gordon Bennett was again with Frank (my
balloon mentor) in 1986 out of Salzburg. Another
night time launch to the sound of the Star
Spangled Banner covered us with goose bumps as
we stared into the darkness looking for power
lines and mountains. Political boundaries and
slow winds kept this Gordon Bennett flight short
in distance and only about 18 hours in duration.
Our lack of experience in flying this type of
task (distance within a boundary) kept us in
third place, but we were learning fast. Third try at the Gordon Bennett was in 1988 with
Jim Schiller. Jim had far more gas experience
than Frank or I and I was ready to learn about
long distance alpine flying. Our midnight launch
from Bregenz, Austria was the most spectacular
of all. The flight carried us over the Austrian
Alps with a full moon and clear skies, to
another third place finish. Frank and I came back together for a flight from
Lech, Austria in 1990. Unfortunately, the
weather was not in our favor. The race was
launched in less than ideal conditions. Frank
moaned about his demise as he was dragged into
the basket for a short flight into Italy and a
three day retrieve. We were proud to land first
and finish last rather than fly into scattered
thunderstorms as most competitors had done. Our
major accomplishment was to get a photograph of
Mike Wallace flying into the top of a
cumulo-nimbus (Ballooning, Winter 1990—91,
cover). 1992 Driving from Salzburg to Stuttgart for a fifth
try at the Gordon Bennett brought back memories
of my four previous starts in the famous
competition. One by one I analyzed them to come
up with a strategy for this year’s event. I was
determined to go the distance and make a two-day
flight, something I had not yet done. The team My co-pilot was Jim Herschend of Ozark, Missouri.
He had taken my Red Dog Balloon competition
course in Baton Rouge and after hearing a few
stories, had been bitten by the gas bug. He was
ready for adventure. Our combined weight of 290
pounds would help us take enough ballast to make
it through the second night with plenty to spare
to climb above the snow-laden clouds on the all
important second day. Jim and I arrived in
Stuttgart along with our Austrian crew of Jeff
Schendli and Gerald Sturzlinger. We were met
there by Roif Goldschmidt of Basel, who was our
balloonmeister.
Our balloon was D-ASPEN, a Worner balloon with a
light-weight net and basket, both specially made
for long distance flights.The balloon belonged
to Randy Woods of Aspen, Colorado, who lent it
to us for the flight. The event began as usual,
with registration and a short, simple reception.
The information received from Competition
Director Markus Haggeney was voluminous, and
included information for landing in any country
in Europe, with all telephone numbers, ATC
procedures and flight limitations in controlled
airspace; and weather forecasts covering wind
patterns over the next four days at altitudes up
to 18,000 feet.
The highlight of the reception was the
appointing of observers to teams. After our
names were drawn third to last for launch, our
spirits were raised when we saw that our
observer was not the usual middle-aged somber
Austrian male, but a young, energetic,attractive
German woman who spoke perfect English and was
ready for fun, as we all were. Petra Oberzig fit
right in with our wild and crazy crew. Planning the flight Saturday morning’s briefing brought news of
excellent flight conditions to come. Once the
rain stopped, we were to begin inflation and
prepare for a 6:00 p.m. launch. The winds were
predicted to take us anywhere from due north at
low levels to southeast at upper levels, towards
Yugoslavia. After reviewing the various wind
forecasts and maps, it was clear that our goal
was northeast Poland. We were not permitted to
fly in any part of the former Soviet Union,
former Yugoslavia, Rumania and Albania. The
winds would turn right with height and there was
no significant weather to avoid. Premonition As we left the briefing just before noon, the
butterflies in my stomach started fluttering,
but not as much as usual. This was it, a green
light for a night launch in the big one, the
Gordon Bennett, but I was more relaxed than
usual. The weather looked great for a slow two
or three day flight to Poland with no major
mountain ranges to cross and no threat of
adverse weather conditions. These were the
conditions I had been looking for for years.
Getting ready We checked out of our hotel, picked up a few
last minute munchies and headed for the launch
field. The rain had stopped, the ceiling was
lifting and breaking up and the inflations were
going smoothly. Rolf Goldschmidt expertly
prepared D-ASPEN for the launch, and everything
was looking good for a long flight. After a late
lunch, it was time for final preparations of the
balloon and basket. The basket is my job, and
it’s mind-boggling how much stuff gets carried
aloft when you’re taking only the essentials. In
addition to radios, transponder, ELT, GPS, etc.,
we also had to stock up on cold weather gear,
food for up to three days, maps, charts,
batteries, etc., etc., etc. Six p.m. approached
and the balloons at the top of the launch order
went through final preparations. A last minute
checklist, turn on the barograph and flying
lights, shake hands and kiss the crew good-bye.
Then the best part—a slow climb into the night
with the sound of your National Anthem fading as
you gain altitude. Soon there is only the faint
city noise and the occasional chatter with ATC
Stuttgart. First night We made a slow climb to 8,000 ft, which was the
altitude we needed to catch a wind heading east.
Two hours after our launch, we found ourselves
headed out of the Stuttgart area in a heading of
070º, pretty close to our optimum direction of
060º. The night went smoothly. We stayed between
eight and ten thousand feet for the best speed
and direction. We also wanted to limit our
altitude to conserve ballast and not get too
cold. The temperature wasn’t far below freezing,
but when you’re sitting still for hours, it
feels colder and colder. Down suits and warming
packs were in order. There was only one major
problem the first night. We had difficulty
picking up a strong signal with our Global
Positioning System (GPS) and had to play with
the antenna to get a signal. Our second GPS did
the same. Subsequent talks with other pilots
indicated the system just wasn’t working
properly that night. First day Early morning found us just south of Nuremberg
and a beautiful sunrise over eastern Bavaria. We
didn’t have to use too much ballast during the
night to maintain altitude and things were still
looking good for a two-day flight. We crossed
the border into Czechoslovakia around midday
after climbing to pick up speed. At this point
our strategy was revised. At altitudes that took
us east northeast, we couldn’t get enough speed
to make a boundary after two days. At higher
altitudes, we headed due east and with more
speed. Our goal was now to get as much speed as
possible without going southeast as this would
cause a shorter potential due to the border with
Romania. We spent the day around 13,000 feet.
After making a late afternoon descent south of
Tabor, we reorganized and prepared for a second
night in the balloon, a first for both of us.
Night two Our crew was almost constantly in radio contact,
and at Tabor, they had time to make a few calls
to get weather updates. We were advised that the
lower levels would slow down and turn left so we
kept the balloon high during the night to take
advantage of stronger winds. And morning again Morning brought us into Poland and clouds. We
needed the sun to warm us up and take us to
higher faster winds, but the clouds were too
thick, and it started to snow. After lengthy
discussions, we decided we would spend our
ballast to get above the clouds rather than save
it for a possible third night. We climbed to
17,000 ft and picked up the speed we needed to
reach the border with Ukraine before sunset.
Once speed was not a problem, we came down a few
thousand feet to get a slight turn to the left.
This kept us north of the mountains and took us
to better landing areas.
It also gave us more potential distance, as the
border went northeast. The day went smoothly as
did the entire flight. Approach We began our descent for final landing from
15,000 at 4:30 in the afternoon. This gave us
thirty minutes to get down at 500 fpm, and one
hour to be found before sunset. We needed to get
down fast because the lower winds were backing
up and we didn’t want to lose any distance. Our
crew was in position to watch our descent, but
the surface winds were brisk and we had to land
and deflate before they could find us. Landing I told them to go toward the hill with the fire,
whereupon they told me every hill had a fire on
it, as the Poles burn their weeds. After two
hours, they finally reached us with the help of
the local police. Two hours later we were on the
road to Przemysl to look for a hotel and a hot
meal. We found a hotel, but no hot meal. All we
were really interested in was a bed. We weren’t
thinking about winning at this point. All we
knew was that we had just made a truly fantastic
flight lasting almost 46 hours and hopefully we
would finish in the top three. Results The next day we took care of the details, an
official stamp from the local police and a
measurement for the landing spot. Next we took
our balloon mail to the post office and Petra
called back to headquarters. We noticed she was
having trouble speaking and turning red. I
started to get chills as she told me the news.
All the balloons had landed, and it looked like
we had gone the farthest, but nothing was
official.
We celebrated with a hot meal, and even some
Romanian champagne to wash it down. It wasn’t
until two days later that we called back again,
and this time it was official. We celebrated all
over again, but this time, we called everyone we
knew to share the incredible news. We had won
the Gordon Bennett, and our names would be in
the history books.
Winning the Gordon Bennett is a double treat.
Not only do you get the prestige of winning a
major event, you get to share it with your
countrymen by hosting the event the following
year. I hope many BFA members will get to see
this incredible event next year. Very special thanks to co—pilot James Hersehend,
Balloonmeister Rolf Goldschmidt, Balloon owner
Randy Woods, Crew Jeff Schendi and Gerald
Stürzlinger and Observer Petra Oberzig.
David Levin |
So far the pleasantly short and non-pathetic report of the winner. Almost
unnoticed a crew pushed to the second place in this race, which would become
quite famous within the next few years: German Willi Eimers and Bernd
Landsmann. Considering Willi wasn’t a nobody in the German ballooning scene
as he had already drawn attention with some spectacular and not always
undisputed long distance flights. He also had been the guy, who ranked last
with just 68 kilometres but with the longest time (44 h 20 min.) in the air
at the Gordon Bennett Race in 1985. The mockers of 1985 had not realized,
that this was a sign of stamina and persistence in supposedly hopelessness
situations, which now started to bear rich fruit. But let Willi tell by
himself, he gave an extensive report of this flight that is published here:
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