Teams Used Tactics To Gain An Advantage During The Launch

The 17th America’s Challenge got off to a glowing start Sunday – literally – on a gorgeous fall evening in Albuquerque. With the setting sun painting the Sandia Mountains a gorgeous salmon hue and hundreds of hot air balloons preparing to glow in the background, the five America’s Challenge competitors headed out to destinations unknown – in all likelihood, to the east.

The competitors began inflation about midafternoon as the competitors meticulously prepared their craft for flight. These pilots literally make a list and check it twice, just like Santa. After all, they can’t stop at the nearest convenience store!

Then, at 1800 local time (0000Z) with the opening of the one-hour launch window, the officials called for the first balloon to be moved to the launch platform. The launch order is determined by random draw . . . but the random draw quickly went by the wayside as the very first strategies in the race began to play out. While teams are called to the platform in order, but have the prerogative to “pass,” provided they make it aloft before the end of the window. In the first round, the first four teams all “passed,” and as the US National Anthem played Team 5 – Mark Sullivan and Cheri White of the USA – ascended to the cheers of the crowd. While they were still in earshot, event announcer Tom Rutherford announced to the crowd that, “for now, Mark and Cheri are in first place!”
 
Team 3 – Peter Cuneo and Barbara Fricke of the US – were the second to launch, followed by Team 4, the British entry of Jonathan Mason and Clive Bailey. Team 2 – Russia’s Leonid Tyukhtyaev and Germany’s Wilhelm Eimers – made an especially exuberant entrance, with the always entertaining and flamboyant Eimers leading the team onto the platform before boarding the balloon.

Last to launch was Team 1, J. Michael Wallace and Kevin Brielmann, in their classic netted balloon “Spirit of Springfield.” This balloon has made appearances all over the world in Gordon Bennett and America’s Challenge races and is the last actively-flying netted gas balloon in the US. As Wallace and Brielmann took off, announcers called for the first “all burn” of the Balloon Fiesta’s spectacular Balloon Glow.

Trajectory forecasts point to an eastward track, with landings in the Florida panhandle a possibility. At this writing some of the balloons have begun the swing to the east past the Sandias and out into New Mexico’s eastern plains.

(Image of gas balloons from file)

FMI: http://www.balloonfiesta.com/GasTracking/2012/