First flight is in at the World Hot Air Balloon Championship
Szeged, Hungary.
Competitors at the 25th FAI World Hot Air Balloon Championship finally took to the air in the afternoon of September 10 after three cancelled flights due to wind, rain, low cloud ceilings or a combination of all three. With 118 competitors present, making sure the weather allows for a safe flight for all is paramount.
Fabio Passos (BRA) lands after a well scored first flight. He sits in fifth in the provisional scores.
As competitors sat down in the briefing room for Tuesday’s afternoon, they were greeted with a set of three tasks on their task sheet reflecting Event Director Paolo Oggioni's ambition in getting the event started off with a number of tasks.
Pilots were instructed to find their own launch sites. In their weather briefing, they were made aware to expect more left as they climbed and a windshift during flight. The tricky dance of deciding where to launch from ensued with 118 teams trying to find a good spot. Before launching, pilots also needed to declare a virtual goal for their third task with both a geographic point and altitude.
Previous World Champion Johnny Petrehn (USA) shared this photo of the first task with the X and the triangle clearly visible.
Their first task was to first fly towards a Gordon Bennett Memorial (GBM) where they would find a large X accompanied by a triangular marked area 20 meters up wind in which to throw their markers - small numbered sandbags with a tail which is used in a majority of competitive tasks. This task is tricky because while the triangular area is large, failing to throw the marker inside of it leads to a ‘No Result’ and significantly fewer points. Bold competitors can aim to hit the fabric of the X itself for maximum points: the pilot with the best result gets 1000 points and a formula determines the points for each subsequent competitor based on their distance. Four-time World Championship runner-up Uwe Schneider (GER) hit the cross with a winning mark of 2.25m though he did lose some points for making contact with the ground.
Next, pilots flew south and had to decide on one of three physical targets as part of the Hesitation Waltz (HWZ). They do not need to declare which of the three they’ll pick ahead of time, which can lead to a hesitation to commit and the fear of going in between the two. Most pilots opted for the centremost of the three though the Swiss and a few others decided to go for the Westernmost target (A). Despite the challenging winds, a number of pilots got good scores with Mateusz Rekas (POL) winning on a 2.99m gravity drop. On this task, pilots had to keep their arms in the basket and let the baggie fall out on gravity alone, a format that has been used increasingly as pilots have become so good at throwing. The shifting winds provided some with the opportunity to pass more than once though the predictably of what their next pass looked like was lacking.
“There were some crazy wind shifts around the HWZ A goal this afternoon. It was actually a bit nerve wracking. On the positive side, I eventually got my marker in the measuring area after 40 minutes of circle work.” - Pilot Anton Kerr (AUS) shared on Instagram.
The third task, the initially set Pilot Declared Goal (PDG), capped off the flight. Pilots have to be aware of the minimum distances between tasks. If early balloon competition relied heavily on paper maps and compasses, tasks which are now generally done by a series of on-board computers helping with navigation. It seems that there was a certain advantage to going early, at least for the first two tasks, as the wind shift sent balloons around the sky with less certainty than they usually expect.
There were “interesting wind conditions with almost 180 degrees of steerage made for plenty of box attempts and unusual tracks into the Gordon Bennett and Hesitation Waltz targets,” according to the UK Balloon Team.
As the balloons finished throwing their markers on the first two tasks, officials were quick to start measuring the baggies. Upon landing, other scoring officials measured the virtual flight logs to see how close competitors got to their PDG. Collectively, the pilots will be hoping for more stable winds in the flights ahead. The forecast is looking positive for more flights in the coming days.
To follow the next flights in real-time and cheer on your favourite pilots, watch the innovative live-tracking tool being used by the event organizers. To find the results, visit the event page on Watch Me Fly.
After the provisional scoring of the first flight, Clement Seigeot (FRA) leads with 2859 of a possible 3000 points followed by Roman Hugi (SUI) and Eliav Cohen (ISR).
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Credit header picture: Competition Ballooning Team Belgium
