By Jonathan Perron-Clow of the FAI Ballooning Commission's Public & Media Relations Sub-Committee

No one said it would be easy. Competitors at this year’s 23rd FAI European Hot Air Balloon Championship have got more than they bargained for. Unrelenting good weather combined with challenging tasks have sent pilots moving up and down the standings just as much as they’ve done in the sky.

Flight Six: Tasks 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25

What better way to watch the sunrise and start a spectacular day than with six tasks. That’s what Event Director Martin Wegner (GER) decided on Wednesday morning as he built the plan for the first flight of the day. It was to be another combination of sending competitors to find invisible dots in the sky, white crosses in fields and navigating through the wind currents on the quest for thousands of valuable points.

If the previous morning was about the line of balloons coming into a target together, this flight had the opportunity for something different. The forecast of light winds near the surface and up to over 5000 feet meant that balloons could be hovering over the same space for an extended period. Their ability to plan and execute their own flight was under the spotlight of the morning sun.

Blai Carbonnel (ESP) rises to the first task of the day. Credit: Agata Dominguez

Competitors chose their own launch site and could plan out the first four tasks. At the very least, they could choose the location of their own first target, a PIlot Declared Goal (PDG) at least 1km away from their launch site. From there they had six Hesitation Waltz (HWZ) targets to pick from and they’d need to fly to two of them and drop markers using the gravity drop method that has become so familiar this week.

Sixty-six pilots were able to fly to within 100m of their PDG with the 6th ranked competitor in the world Roman Hugi (SUI) achieving the best result of 2m. The HWZ delivered more of the same: excellent scores from pilots as six of them were within 1m. Dominic Bareford (GBR), who was in second place overall as the day started, was a mere 0.19m from the centre on task 21.

From there, they were called upon to do an Angle (ANG). The wind was forecast to head to roughly 100o. Therefore, the goal would be to move off that direction as much as possible in a 3 to 4km distance. No easy feat in slow winds with little steerage, but sure enough many pilots were able to find enough of it. In fact, it was the Dutch who did best; Jan Oudenampsen managed 48.9o and Iris Broeders-Van Ham got 46.9o. Not far behind were the leaders Zeberli,  Bareford and Roman Hugi (SUI) who had moved up to third ahead of this flight.

It is not winning every task that is important, but placing consistently near the top. Many pilots have seen their name on the podium at some point this week or have won tasks, but that duo have risen to top and stayed, a familiar position for them both.

Dropping a marker. Credit: Florian Auer

Before landing on this flight, they still had two tasks to do as time moved on. A virtual Fly On (FON), which essentially needed to be declared in air, came next. Local pilot Andreas Simoner (AUT) got a 9m result and reigning FAI World Champion Clément Seigeot (FRA) got 13m. He made success on FONs a key part of his run to the World Champion last year in Szeged, Hungary. He’s been moving his way up the field over the course of this week and coming into this flight was sitting in 8th overall.

It all came down to the Altitude Profile Task (APT), a task developed during the early days of competition ballooning using barographs. It has recently been dusted off the shelf to reappear in rule books. As one of the few types of task that hadn’t appeared among the first 24, it was its time to shine. The task involves following an altitude path set out by the Event Director as closely as possible, with additional points for the nearest to the line, which has altitude increases and decreases, over an 11 minute period. As of writing, officials were still scoring the 82 competitors on this task.

An official checks the markers at a target. Credit: Florian Auer

Flight Seven: Tasks 26, 27, 28

There wasn’t much rest after the exhausting morning flight before the evening briefing came rolling around again. The high pressure only gave light winds, and a Hare balloon was called upon for the second time in the event for a Hare and Hounds (HNH) task. This time, it would play double duty. After launch, competitors would need to follow it for roughly 40 minutes until it landed a first time to lay out a cross. If good conditions continued, it would fly off again for roughly 30 more minutes before laying down a second cross. After that, pilots would need to fly towards their own virtual spot in the sky as the last task of the day.

The HNH proved to be trickier than might be imagined as only 16 pilots got their gravity dropped markers into the MMA. Local and 11-time Austrian champion Daniel Kusternigg (AUT) won with 0.20. Notably among the leaders, Zeberli had a worse result than Bareford allowing the Brit to close the gap between them by 400 or so points.

The Hare balloon did indeed lift off again and the chase continued, with Kusternigg again getting a good result, though this time his 1.28m was good for second with Pascal Kreins (GER)’s 0.72 m beating him out. On this task, it was Zeberli bettering Bareford by roughly 300 points to restore the lead.

Kusternigg continued his great flight on the Fly On (FON) with a third place result of 15m, only slightly behind Iris Broeders-Van Ham’s (NED) 9m and David Spildooren (BEL)’s 14m. The battle between the top two saw Zeberli capture 200 more points than Bareford, though defending FAI European Champion Hugi did better than both with a fourth place result.

As the days tick by, pilots are now counting every point and are feeling the stress and weight of each result. With bad weather anticipated later on Thursday, the flying window is shrinking and thus the opportunity to catch up - or slip up. Thursday’s sunrise flight could be decisive...

Przemyslaw Moscicki of Poland above a target. Credit: Florian Auer

Follow the action

Top skills will be on display all week in Wieselburg. FAI will provide extensive coverage of the Championship with regular updates on its website, Facebook, and Instagram.

• Tracking and results
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Header image credit: Florian Auer