Fwd: Gordon Bennett Race - World Championship of long distance gas ballooning

> Liebe Freunde,

heute Abend startet das Gordon Bennett Rennen in der Schweiz.
Wir sind als Deutschland II am Start.
Die bedingungen sind nicht ganz optimal fuer uns, wir hoffen jedoch auf eine schoene Gasballonfahrt.
Unten sind die Seiten zu finden auf denen er uns folgen koennt.



> Dear friends and colleagues,
>
> this weekend the 56th edition of this 106 year old race will take place in
> Ebnat-Kappel, Switzerland.
> The rules of this race are simple - get as far as possible from launch
> point with one filling - duration and direction of flight don't matter.
>
> I will be taking part in this race with my team as Germany II. We expect to
> launch either Saturday or Sunday and fly for 48 - 72 hours (weather and
> conditions permitting).
>
> If you want to track the progress of the teams, there is a tracking site to
> follow us:
> http://tracking.way.aero/gordonbennett/
>
> The official Race website you find at:
> http://www.gordonbennett2012.ch/
>
> And our Blog of team Germany II:
> http://www.gordon.ballon-stuttgart.de/
>
> I am looking forward to an interseting, fun and mainly safe event.
>
> Yours
>
> Tomas
>
>
> If you are not the intended addressee, please inform us immediately that you have received this e-mail in error, and delete it. We thank you for your cooperation.

Difficult decission

With prognosed fog along the coast line, we decided to land.

Landed

Due to unfavorable wind predictions we decided to land with 180kg of sand. We did not consider it as safe to continue. But it was a beautiful flight.

Impressions of Frankonia

Nürnberg in Fog

Very clear night, where we had the forcasted direction change. Hohenfels US shooting range let us pass at 5000 or above, which made our life a bit easier. In opposite Grafenwöhr US shooting range did not allow a crossing this time, since they are habing some air-to-ground shooting going on. So we had to play a little bit to get around it. Now we are in the airspace of Nürnberg Airport, but with nice controllers it i no problem at all.

24 hours completed ....

Jellyfish in the air

Uneventful day 1

After flying through a beautiful night with falling stars, we are having a calm day. Had some little excitment because of the US restricted area "Grafenwöhr" - but at the end they were nice and let us fly across.
There is some fog below and some cloud well above us, so there is not much to see or take pictures of right now

Leaving Stuttgart slowly

Impression of Stuttgart from above

14563_trj001.gif 734×913 Pixel

http://ready.arl.noaa.gov/hysplitout/14563_trj001.gif

Balloon packed and sitting with our local helper in the pub already

Good landing at Bacau

Very nice people welcomed us and helped us pack up the balloon.

Super Chase Crew

Petra and Andreas are already past Clausenburg / Cluj.
That's an achievment! They left yesterday evening Stuttgart.

Sunrise over Romania

Still being in charge and Volker is having a good night sleep.

Wild Carpat Mountains

Preparing for landing

The night over the Carpats

Now over Klausenburg heading East. Tomas had the first sleeping shift, now Volker takes over the "snorring with the wolfes".

Into the next night

Expecting to fly into Romania and there over th Carpat Mountains

And now over the third European Capitol

Also here great teamwork with Budapest air traffic control.

Flying over Slovakia into Hungary

Crossing the Danube

And flying past Bratislava

There we also found very nice controllers that were very interested into gas ballooning and new about the Gordon Bennett races.

Flying past Vienna

Due to the help if our friend Michael Reichert, Vienna control welcomed us with wide open arms. We went a little lower to get more to the south in order to avoid the Ukraine.

Impressions after take-off

Took off at 1737 heading towards Aalen