by: Alex Nagorski

• 23 June 2001
• 25 June 2001
• 27 June 2001
• 29 June 2001
• Ballooning Results - Gas Balloons
• 30 June 2001 - Official Final Results - Hot Air Balloons

23 June 2001

Ninety eight competitors from 31 countries have come to Seville, Spain for the 2nd World Air Games Hot Air Balloon Championship. Additionally for this Games there are 8 gas balloons from 6 countries competing in their own type event.

The pilot of the balloon at the forefront has just dropped his marker
(see the green marker falling towards the ground on the right of the basket).
(photo by Thierry Montigneaux)

Views of balloons approaching the target area of the first task. (photo by Thierry Montigneaux)

This makes the World Air Games unique in that two different types of balloons are competing in the same location.

The Seville area has unique winds since they tend to blow in the afternoon and through the night, only to become gentle and on many occasions variable winds during the mornings. The weather is affected by both the sea breezes from the Atlantic and also the hot dry wind from the Sahara called the Levanter.

On Saturday June 23rd the competitors and officials met for an Event Briefings to establish the operational parameters for their events. For the hot air balloons the competition starts on Sunday morning with a favourable weather outlook. The forecast is for blue skies, hot temperatures and gentle winds after sunrise. The gas balloonists are also optimistic for a flight early in the week.

The balloonists went to sleep on Saturday night looking forward to some good flying and competition at the 2nd World Air Games.

25 June 2001

On Monday the flying started very early.

Early morning take-off

The gas balloons lifted off at 02.30 from the Tablada airfield for a flight to the north east. As of noon on June 25th all the balloons had landed safely and the teams were headed back to Seville. No results are available yet for the three part task but the furthest distance flown was about 160 km.

The hot air balloons also flew this morning in the competition area west of Seville and were challenged by the Event Director, Les Purfield, with a four part task: Fly In, Judge Declared Goal, Fly On and a second Fly On. The flight was challenging as the winds seemed to shift after sunrise and the competitors had to work hard to reach the second target. A low thin bank of cloud that seemed to cover just the Seville area presented an interesting obstacle as the winds necessary to navigate from the first to the second target were just below or at the cloud level.

Pilots have to drop their markers in the middle of target, if possible...

With the pilots markers scattered across a wide area by flying the four tasks, the scoring has been very slow and results will not be in until Tuesday morning.

The weather forecast continues to be hot with clear skies and light morning winds increasing in speed during the day and into the evening. The possibility of morning tasks is excellent while so far the evenings have been too windy to fly balloons.

Pictures by Srecko Medven.

27 June 2001

Competition continues in both the hot air and gas ballooning areas. On Tuesday morning, just prior to the 5:30 am hot air competition briefing low clouds and mist moved into the flying area. The pilots, crews and officials were moved to the main launch area west of Seville to see if the weather would clear. After delaying the flight for over an hour and constantly watching the sky and winds the flight was cancelled. This was one of the very rare occasions in June when there were low clouds over Andalusia.

The flight delay provided the opportunity to finish the scoring for both the hot air and gas balloons. The cumulative results for both competitions are posted elsewhere on the FAI Web site but the quick version of the results are:

HOT AIR RESULTS

Task 4 - Fly In

On Wednesday morning the early morning winds, just off the surface, were brisk but slowed down just before sunrise to allow a nice flight. A two part competition was called with a Fly In task and a Hesitation Waltz (pilots choice of two targets).

Considering the steerage in the winds was very limited in the upper altitudes, the results were excellent as the balloons seemed to line up at two targets which allowed the pilots to follow each other closer to the targets.

Results for this morning are not yet available.

Earlier on Wednesday the gas balloons took of on their second and last competitive flight. Winds initially should have taken them to the north and north east but shifted and took them east and south east towards Granada and Malaga. The balloons should have landed around noon,

29 June 2001

The sky in and around Seville has been full of balloons the last few days. The weather has been very good for flying and the competitors have taken advantage of the situation to produce some good results.

Gas Competitions

The gas competition concluded Wednesday morning with a flight towards the east and south east coast of Spain. Four tasks were called; Pilot Declared Goal, Fly On, Fly On, and Longest Distance. The forecast winds changed after takeoff taking the balloons towards the Mediterranean Sea and resulting in flights shorter than expected. They had several interesting experiences. A mountain ridge in the south east played a deciding factor where the teams landed. The Polish team of Stephan Makne and Darius Zarzycki landed near the top of one of the highest mountains in Spain. The Swiss team of Cristian Stroll and Hans Jorg Frolin was flying near Granada and was instructed to land since they were coming into air space that was reserved to the WAG parachuting competition. An interesting conflict of two air sports.

The final results of the gas competition is now available on the FAI Web site and the winning team is from Germany with Klaus Wesgerber and Astrid Gerhardt.

Hot Air Competition

The hot air balloons have only been flying in the mornings since the winds in the evenings have been strong with thermals. The tasks on Thursday and Friday mornings have been more complicated and difficult to achieve. Results have still been quite good as the pilots have taken up the challenge to fly well.

Thursday the flight consisted of a Fly In, Elbow and Fly On tasks. The Elbow task requires the pilots to use the different wind directions and markers to create two legs with the greatest angle. It was very interesting to see two different strategies. Some pilots started their first leg by staying very low and flying 1 - 2 meters off the ground. Then going up to altitude to get their second leg. Another smaller group took the high route first and then doing the low one. It was quite an interesting task to watch.

On Friday morning there were four tasks, Judge Declared, Pilot Declared, Hesitation Waltz (two possible targets to choose from) and Fly On. The pilots took off and climbed to the higher altitudes to get the winds they needed. From the ground the winds seemed to change and at some levels take the balloons backwards from their original mass launch field. With the need to find the upper winds which seemed quite slow and variable the balloons were scattered all over the sky. A truly remarkable sight, especially from a distance.

The competitors had to work hard, fly aggressively at times and have a lot of patience at other times to find the winds to manoeuvre them close to the targets. Results were still remarkable.

The weather looks good for one more competitive task on Saturday morning with the need to calculate all the results by the later afternoon for the awards ceremony. At this time Masahiko FUJITA of Japan has a strong lead over the next group of competitors. The top five competitors are:

Ballooning Results - Gas Balloons

30 June 2001 - Official Final Results - Hot Air Balloons