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53rd Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett Gas balloon race

Wednesday September 9, 2009
At 12:00 today the 53rd Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett, the famous international FAI aeronautical gas balloon race named after the US Media tycoon James Gordon Bennett, came to a fantastic  close with the final landing of the 16th competitor in Portelas / Portugal, barely 20 km from the most western tip of the European Continent, and only about 4 km from the Atlantic ocean.
Category: General
Posted by: jenni

The French team of Sébastien ROLLAND and Vincent LEYS, onboard their French registered gas balloon (F-PPSE), took off from Geneva last Saturday (September 6) at 22:42 and flew 1.587km in 85h12min to the final victory in the race. 16 gas-balloon teams from 8 nations took off from Geneva during a dramatic night-launch in perfect weather conditions.
Of the 16 balloons
  • 2 landed in France,
  • 1 landed in Italy / Sardegna,
  • 2 landed in Spain / on the Balearic Island of Menorca,
  • 3 landed in Algeria,
  • 5 landed in Spain / Mainland,
  • and 3 landed in Portugal
After long and dramatic overwater flights over the Mediterranean sea in which several World Records were broken. The three balloons which landed in Algeria also made the first ever intercontinental gas balloon flight between Europe and Africa. Full results can be downloaded from the official race websites at

http://www.ballon.eu/2009_coupe_eboard.html  and
http://www.satpro.org/gordon2009/index.php

_______________________________________________________________________
This is a News release from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale:
FAI - The World Air Sports Federation.

 


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