• 1985-1993 Josef Starkbaum, Austria: 7-fold winner
• 1920-1937 Ernest Demuyter, Belgium: 6-fold winner
• 1997-2003 Vincent and Jean-François Leÿs, France: 4-fold winner
• 1995-2000 Wilhelm Eimers, Germany: 3-fold winner

Rule is that the winner of the trophy can keep the trophy during the coming year, and must hand it to next years’ winner.
The country that gets the trophy for 3 consecutive years can keep it.

‘Coupe’-victories

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So far the race has been held 50 times, out of which 9 times in Belgium

1906
It is scarcely necessary to remark that no contest of similar importance had ever been held before in the history of aeronautics. The first Gordon Bennett Race started from the Tuileries Gardens in Paris on September 30th. From dawn onwards, the biggest crowd ever assembled in Paris for one event had begun to fill the Tuileries and the Place de la Concorde. The bridges over the Seine and the house-tops all around were black with spectators. Sixteen balloons, requiring over a million cubic feet of coal gas, were inflated before a crowd of 200.000 people.
At exactly four o’clock, the Italian silk balloon ‘Elfe’ rose gracefully from the starting point. The beautiful balloon was released upon the firing of a gun by Mr. James Gordon Bennett Jr. The other monsters bobbed and swayed at their moorings, waiting for their designated moment of departure before taking off at five minute intervals. It was a marvellous autumn day in Paris, a real French fête.

The Americans Lahm and Hersey won. Amongst the participants two Belgian-French teams. One was the Belgian Van de Driessche, one was Count Hadelin d’Oultremont, who would later on become president of the Belgian Aero-Club. It was d’Oultremont who, in 1907, had the honour to fly with Prince Albert of Belgium, who would a few years later become king.

1907
America went wild with excitement. It had never had an International balloon race before. Departure from Saint-Louis – Missouri – USA. The reason why Saint-Louis had been chosen for this long-distance race was that, the city being so far from the sea, there could be no danger of anyone landing in the ocean.
There was a fresh wind at take-off and later on the moon shine brilliantly. The conditions seemed ideal for record-breaking flights.
No Belgian participant. The Germans win with a distance of 1403 km.

This year would be a major step in the Belgian Ballooning history: the Belgian Balloonist Léon Gheude took the 15 year old Ernest Demuyter for a trip in his balloon, and the boy was immediately addicted.

Departure and winning team: USA

During World War 1 no Gordon Bennett will be organised, but Ernest Demuyter wins several prizes in other ballooning competitions, and this makes him ready to win the 1920th Gordon Bennett Race

During this same year Demuyter will break two time records.

Demuyter and Coeckelbergh fly 1155 km into Sweden and win.

So this race would have been most interesting in terms of distances and time had there not been the drama over Belarus.

Three American balloons entered the Belarus territory early in the morning, after having transmitted their position to the Minsk air traffic control.
One of these three was the Virgin Islands team of Alan Fraenkel and John Stuart-Jervis. Alan Fraenkel was an enthusiast balloonist who developed the ‘Windreader’: an instrument allowing to read the direction and speed of the wind on different altitudes very precisely.
Before entering the Belarus territory the Minsk reply was in hardly understandable English; upon entering the territory Minsk first replied in Russian only, later on they did not reply at all.
The teams of Levin & Sullivan and of Wallace & Brielman were forced to land by the military authorities.
A military helicopter approached the ‘D-Caribbean’.

The balloons took off east. Thunderstorms reached Oklahoma. 10 out of 20 balloons landed before or during the second night under difficult conditions.
But Luc Trullemans guided the Belgians high above the thunderstorms, in a very fast current.

The Belgian team landed the ‘Belgica II’ in Amory, Mississippi, having flown 1666 km.
The Belgians were back indeed!
They won the Gordon Bennett!
How proud they were! How proud were all Belgian balloonists, and especially: how proud were Albert Vanden Bemden and his wife Fientje. What more can an elderly man hope for but to teach eager youngsters and make them even bigger than himself ?

For the first time in the history of the Gordon Bennett no observers flew on board. A ‘black-box’, a sealed GPS-logger, would register the position of the balloon.

The winds were turning all directions.

The Germans Hora & Löschhorn flew to Calais. They aimed at crossing the Channel, but 10 km before reaching England the winds blew them back in Northerly direction towards the North Sea. In the middle of the night they had to make an emergency landing, 70 km out of the Dutch mainland, in the North Sea. The Dutch coastguard rescued the pilots, their basket and their balloon.

The second German team Eimers & Landsmann also headed for France, but very slowly. After 29 hours they reached Paris. The night crossing of this City of Light was like a fairy tale. But the fairy tale soon ended as they were afterwards blown all along the Belgian and Dutch coastline, over water. The winds were strengthening and they landed the balloon near Malmö. They were the winners with 795 km.

The Belgians got no further but the North of France.

Again the Leÿs brothers were the only ones to fly a third night, helped by the Belgian meteorologist Luc Trullemans. The balloon "Petit Prince" named after the famous work of Antoine de St Exupéry landed safely, 5 minutes after sunrise, in the tiny village named Tinhosas, in southern Portugal, Algarve.

The landing was very difficult and tricky in very turbulent weather, with wind gusts up to 60 km/hour, in a hilly area with a lot of trees and electric wires. The approach and landing required a lot of skill but was perfectly managed by Vincent and Franzi Leys.
A quick and steep descent between the obstacles was necessary. The balloon landed without any damage in a small area between the trees.

The remaining sand ballast before the landing was 60 kilograms, but 50 kilograms were required for the approach and landing.

Winners for three subsequent years France would host next years Gordon Bennett and could also keep the seventh Coupe Gordon Bennett! 

The Belgians Berben / Siméons have David Dehenauw as meteorologist. They decide to climb faster to be ahead of the depression, and try to reach a more easterly heading. They climb to 6000 m. and remain there for over 4 hours. Landing is foreseen in the vicinity of Gdansk. The sea, the huge shipyard, the cumulus clouds on all

sides, the high altitude necessitate an hour of descent. Bob & Benoît will end in sixth position. They reached 967 km in 20 hours.

Six balloons had chosen to fly over the Baltic Sea, in spite of the thunderstorms.

The Americans Sullivan / Levin ended third, with a landing in Sweden after 1472 km (in 45 hours).
The Germans Eimers / Seel ended second, with a landing in Sweden after 1666 km (in 47 hours).
Willi Eimers has most certainly the largest experience in flying gas balloons: in 2003 he made 43 gas balloon flights. Most gas balloonists are happy with 5 flights a year.
The Americans Abruzzo / Rymer-Davis won with 1803 km (in 53 hours). Also these winners were guided by the Belgian meteorologist Luc Trullemans. He is a true wind-magician!
A special place of honour to Carol Rymer-Davis, the first woman ever to win the Coupe Gordon Bennett!

After three nights only four balloons remain in the race: The Belgians Berben / Siméons (who fly the American Troy Bradley’s balloon) and Van Havere / Van Geyte (flying the ‘Belgica II’), the Germans Eimers / Seel and the Swiss Stoll / Mattenberger.
All four of them beat the 1912 Gordon Bennett distance record of 2191 km of the French Maurice Bienaimé who flew from Stuttgart to Moscow.
But this will not be the only record broken during this race!

Bob Berben and Benoît Siméons will beat it all!
Bob has over 1200 flight hours in balloons, but over 15.000 flight hours on planes. He is presently an Airbus Captain.
Benoît was born in a family of balloonists. His father, his brothers, all share the same passion.
Benoît has some 1600 hours experience in balloons. He flew in all parts of the world, a.o. over the Chinese Wall. He holds the Belgian altitude and the Belgian distance record.
They make a great team: Bob learned to fly gas balloon from Willi Eimers, and Benoît learned it from the Leÿs brothers.

Berben / Siméons overcome a transponder failure and a thunderstorm over Chicago.
They fly over Lake Michigan. Reaching land around sunset after having crossed Lake Huron is a most wonderful experience.
The other balloons have landed north of Lake Superior, Canada.
Luc Trullemans is Bob and Benoîts’ meteorologist. He assures them they can reach Québec without thunderstorm.
And they fly on and on, passing aside of stormy weather, flying extremely high, breaking the general balloon world record, and landing East of the City of Québec in a very deserted densely wooded area, Rivière-du-Loup, having reached 3400 km!

The Belgians are back indeed!

The 50th Coupe Gordon Bennett will depart from Belgium!