| THE 41st GORDON BENNETT RACE |
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By Markus Haggeney 
The 41st Gordon Bennett Race turned out to be one of the most
challenging races ever held since 1906.
The race took off from the City of Warstein (80 NM NE Frankfurt)on September 7th, 1997. It was a spectacular night launch, late on Sunday evening. National anthems were played when the balloons took off. 
Balloons headed to the SE with most of them being around Praha the next
morning.The journey continued into Hungary and into Romania.Due to excellent cooperation with ATC enroute the competition centre was
always well informed about the individual positions of the balloons.
Romania was crossed during the second night and in the morning of Tuesday 5 balloons were close to Bucharest and 2 approx 60 NMs to the North. All were heading towards the Black Sea. It was going to become a very tight race. As we had not received entry permission for Bulgaria prior to take-off of the balloons, all teams had to land in the eastern part of Romania. When planning the event, we had not envisaged that flying across the Black Sea into Turkey was possible (which in fact it was !). Two balloons landed in the delta of river Danuabia in the NE corner of Romania. Last year's winner Eimers/Landsmann landed on a tiny island near Tulcea and had to wait till the next morning to be retrieved because a boat sails just once a day to that island. The other five balloons landed in the SE corner of Romania next to the Bulgarian border. Team Wallace/Brielman landed in the summer residence of the Romanian President right next to the beach which in fact was a very spectacular end to their flight. The remaining leading teams came very close. The top three were just 300 metres apart. What a tight result! The fourth ranked team Fink/Höhl were also within a couple of kilometres to the winner, breaking the German Distance Record. The Polish Team Makne/Hallas also broke their national distance record. The winners were the French Team Leys/Leys who flew their self-built balloon next to the beach with a distance of 1732,5 kilometres. Just 200 metres short were the US Team Levin/Sullivan and another 100 metres short were the Dutch crew Jurg/Van Houten. Never ever in the history of this fantastic race the winners were within so few metres of each other. They all did an outstanding job flying their balloons safely and so close together for such a long distance. We encountered wonderful team spirit amongst all competitors, helping each other, be it in the air obtaining clearances or on the ground during retrieve (on return the teams had driven 5-6000 km each!). The race was also a very fair race as almost all balloons could have flown to the Black Sea because the endurance was less than 48 hours. The pilots proved that flying in crowded European airspace works well and we all think that the right mix of pre-flight permissions, enroute radio communications and support from the competition centre was given to arrive at these results. History: Looking into the top/longest 25 flights ever performed since 1906, nine were done during this race! These were the longest flights ever flown in Europe after the War. All other flights that were longer, have been flown in the USA or in Europe before 1939. FINAL RESULTS
Personnel conducting the Race were:
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OTHER ARTICLES OF ASI FEBRUARY'98 ISSUE | News In Brief | Letters To The Editor | World Records | | Simulated Flying - Birth of A New Air Sport ? | | World Gliding Championships In Your Home Town | | John Roake talks about...My Turkish Adventure | | The 41st Gordon Bennett Race | | A microlight look at the 1st World Air Games |  More articles on Ballooning
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