By : Alex Nagorski

A dream was realized by the City of Gatineau and the festival organizer, Jean Boileau, when they hosted the 6th World Hot Air Airship Championship. The first time for an airship competition in North America. The world came to their doorstep and had the red carpet out.

Gatineau is a small city in the province of Quebec just across the river from Ottawa, Canada's capital city. The region is very picturesque with old Quebec homes, the Gatineau and Ottawa rivers filled with pleasure craft, many parks and a back drop of the Gatineau Hills only a few miles north. This is the area that the Festival de montgolfieres de Gatineau has called home for the last 11 years and has expanded from a 30 balloon informal event to a host of an international armada of 16 airships and 105 hot air balloons.

Although balloons are the center piece of the Gatineau festival, there are many well known entertainers who put on evening stage shows which complement local entertainment and carnival rides. It is truly a family entertainment experience which keeps people on the grounds all day. The whole festival drew over 225,000 people from September 2 to 7 with a peak of 70,000 on Sunday to enjoy the night glow and entertainment.

The focus this year in Gatineau was the hot air airships who came to determine their world champion. Europe is the home of most of the airships so in order to attract as many airships as possible the organizers provided free transportation of pilots and equipment from Geneva, Switzerland. A huge Antonov 124 cargo plane carried 12 airships in their trailers to Ottawa. They were joined by one Chinese and three American airships.

As competitors from 10 countries unloaded their airships and got ready for the first day of competitions on Wednesday, the international team of officials lead by Event Director Garry Lockyer (CAN) and Assistant Director Victor Thorne (GBR) assembled their team. Given the weather and terrain conditions the challenge was to make the competition interesting.

For those unfamiliar with hot air airships, they not only maintain their flight by keeping the air inside hot like hot air balloons, but also have motors with large propellers to drive them ahead, and in some cases with thrust reversers, backwards. In light winds they are very maneuverable and can fly into the wind. Therefore, their tasks test the control of pilots both with the wind and against it.

Targets are only several meters across and it is quite common to have several airships score dead center on a target.

Additionally, a crowd favorite is that after the airships launch and go perform their tasks they most often come back to land in the same field. So the audience is often treated to a launch, a target approach and landing without having to chase around the country side. The task for the competition officials is to make the flights and tasks challenging enough that not everyone is achieving a perfect score. This forces them to fly into tighter target areas, into the wind and cross country navigation flights.

The Tuesday evening opening ceremonies took place at the Museum of Civilization where pilots and officials were introduced to the community and media. A great location and well done ceremony.

Wednesday, September 2nd was the first morning flight which had the competitors go through a starting gate, fly to an X target, on to a touch and go box and then two bulls eye targets before going back to the launch site and passing through a finish gate. The flight took them over the river twice and on to a large treed island where the targets were well placed to force the pilots to fly very well to achieve results. Scores ranged from very good to some that did not get off the ground.

Felix Buhlman from Switzerland was on top after the first flight.

The dedicated morning ballooning fans saw a great show over Gatineau which encouraged more people to come out to the event.

After the first flight the weather developed into an unstable weather pattern, which caused problems for the rest of the competition by canceling most evening flights.

The morning of the second day was again flyable with the airships crossing the Ottawa river to a series of targets, bulls eyes and touch and go boxes near Rockcliff Airport (small generally inactive). This put them into some large fields and a great spectator area where the airships wound up queuing at a number of targets. The traffic in the area slowed to a crawl with many people taking advantage of excellent photo opportunities to record this event. Oscar Lindstrom (SWE) was the top scorer on this flight.

Friday morning fog and evening wind and rain turned the pilots, crews and officials into tourists in the Ottawa and Gatineau region which is rich with history and modern shopping.

Saturday morning was a bit windy but still flyable for the airships. They again went to Rockcliff airport but it took a lot of pilot effort and good airship control to score this day. Several airships were unable to drive into the wind and resulted in being blown off course into rougher terrain for some rough landings. No serious damage or injuries, just some hurt pride. This day Jacques Besnard (SWI) had the best score by a fairly substantial margin.

Saturday was a very busy day at the Gatineau festival and the airships did not disappoint the crowd. The wind at the launch field made the flight marginal but everyone was keen on getting on with the competition. The task was a pylon race up into the Gatineau Hills so that the launch site could be freed up for the 105 hot air balloons to put on their colorful show. The competitors that got off early and had newer, more powerful airships made the flight look easy. Coming around the pylons onto an X target the six airships put on a good show in what turned out to be calm winds at the finishing gate. Others did not fare so well as they were not able to get by the river valley winds to drive up to the hills. Some misadventures took place including on airship landing in a cemetery and rearranged the position of a few head stones. Top scorer for the flight was Simeons Benoit (BEL).

Sunday the winds off the surface were very strong so all flying was canceled.

On Monday the pilots and crews prepared their airships for shipping back to Switzerland on the Antonov 124. That evening the closing ceremonies were a grand affair held at Casino de Hull ballroom. After the dignitaries made their speeches, the trophies, FAI medals and diplomas were given out to the competitors by FAI, aeroclub and competition officials.

The 6th World Hot Air Airship Championships exposed pilots to some new flying conditions and terrain, tested their skills in various ways, provided the pilots and crews with an opportunity to visit Canada and were much appreciated by the crowds who came out. They all left looking forward, to the next hot air airship championship which will be held in Schielleiten, Austria in September 2000.

Results of the 6th World Hot Air Airship Championship