Winner Simply Flies The Farthest From The Starting Point

The United States will be sending two teams to the 58th Gordon Bennett Balloon Race this year.

Team 1 will be made up of Philip Bryant and Andy Cayton, while Team 2 will consist of Mark Sullivan and Cheri White.

The Gordon Bennett Race is a great challenge for air balloon pilots. The rules are quite simple: to win the race, the competitors have to fly the longest distance from the departure point.

This international competition was initially created by James Gordon Bennett, publisher and explorer, the owner of the New York Herald newspaper, which is now the International Herald Tribune.

On September 30th 1906, 16 air balloons took off from the Tuileries Garden in Paris, in front of 200,000 spectators. The Gordon Bennett Race was organized every year between 1906 and 1938 (except in 1931); then it took place in 1979 in the USA. It was officially organized again in 1983 by the FAI (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale: the World Air Sports Federation).

It is all about adventure, courage, strategy and luck: the teams are composed of two pilots who spend 2 to 4 days and nights in wicker baskets up in the air, sometimes very high to catch the favourable winds. It is necessary to know how to go up or down to catch the air streams to fly as far as possible, but also to fight against weariness and the cold air ; the aim is to be able to hold on until being the last competitor in the sky and to land as far as possible.

The 58th edition of the Gordon Bennett Race is organised in France thanks to the victory of the Leÿs-Hoover team in 2012. Vincent Leÿs won the competition several times; on the first time, he was with his brother Jean-François. He has been flying with Christophe Hoover since 2013. They are the favorite team and all the other pilots dream of defeating them.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.gordonbennett2014.org/Home.html