Some Of The Worlds Greatest Gas Balloonists Will Compete In Albuquerque At The Balloon Fiesta

Six balloon teams representing three nations and featuring some of the world’s greatest gas balloonists are preparing to compete in the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta’s America’s Challenge race for gas balloons. Four of the six competing teams include at least one member who has previously won the America’s Challenge, which should bode for an interesting and highly competitive race.

The object of the America’s Challenge, set for launch, weather permitting, on Saturday, October 6, is to fly the greatest distance from Albuquerque while competing within the event rules.  The balloonists often stay aloft more than two days and must use the winds aloft and weather systems to their best advantage to gain the greatest distance.  Flights of more than 1,000 miles are not unusual, and the winners sometimes travel as far as Canada and the U.S. East Coast.

In contrast to hot-air balloons which generate lift by heating ambient air, gas balloons use a lighter-than-air gas such as hydrogen or helium to create lift.  This year, for the first time, all of the balloons in the America’s Challenge will use hydrogen as the lifting gas.  In previous races, competitors could choose to fly with either hydrogen-capable or helium-capable balloons.  However, a worldwide helium shortage has made it impossible for the Balloon Fiesta to obtain helium this year. 

The international field includes pilots from three countries and the first-ever Russian team to compete in the race.

• Jonathan Mason and Clive Bailey, UK:  Jon Mason, a British citizen currently living in Australia, is the defending champion; this will be his first America’s Challenge race flying as the primary pilot.  Mason and British adventurer David Hempleman-Adams won last year, landing just short of the Canadian border in North Dakota and prevailing in one of the most tightly-contested duels in the history of the competition.  They also set a new duration record of more than 70 hours aloft.  In 2008, Hempleman-Adams and Mason became the first British team to win the world’s other major gas balloon distance race, the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett.  This year, Mason teams with co-pilot Clive Bailey, who managed the team’s ground support operations during last year’s winning flight.
• Peter Cuneo and Barbara Fricke, USA:  The other half of that epic 2011 duel, the team that duked it out with the Brits for more than a day and hundreds of miles, is also back.  Albuquerque’s Peter Cuneo and Barbara Fricke have won the race twice (2001 and 2010), have finished second four times including last year, and in 2008 placed third in the Gordon Bennett.  This year for the first time Cuneo and Fricke will fly a hydrogen balloon in the America’s Challenge.  Cuneo assisted Bert Padelt, America’s distinguished builder of gas balloons, in developing an affordable hydrogen system for the American market and Cuneo and Fricke will fly this prototype balloon, which Padelt flew in the 2010 and 2011 America’s Challenge races. 
• Bill Manuel and Andy Cayton, USA:  Last year’s third-place team may be the “hottest” team at the moment -- coming off a spectacular podium finish at the just-completed 2012 Coupe Gordon Bennett.  Bill Manuel and Andy Cayton will fly the Padelt-built hydrogen balloon they took to the Gordon Bennett, a successor to the prototype developed by Padelt and Cuneo.  One of the America’s Challenge’s fiercest competitors, Andy Cayton is a two-time winner of the America’s Challenge, notching back-to-back wins in 2006 and 2007.  Both were daring flights: the 2006 win involved a Gulf of Mexico crossing to Florida and the 2007 flight ended in Saskatchewan, Canada. 
• Mark Sullivan and Cheri White, USA:  2008 America’s Challenge champions Cheri White and Mark Sullivan were last year’s fourth place team and finished third in the 2009 Gordon Bennett and a respectable sixth in the Gordon Bennett this year.  For many years Sullivan and White held the flight duration record for the America’s Challenge.  Mark Sullivan, a multiple-award-winning competitor in both hot air and gas balloons and the American delegate to the world ballooning federation, is the founder of the America’s Challenge.
• J. Michael Wallace and Kevin Brielmann, USA:  Gas ballooning is loaded with tradition, and that tradition is embodied by Mike Wallace and Kevin Brielmann.  Their Spirit of Springfield is the last traditional “netted” gas balloon still being flown in the United States (think Around the World in 80 Days); their balloon is a piece of living history.  Wallace and Brielmann are longtime distinguished international competitors who finished second in the Coupe Gordon Bennett in 1995 and 1996; they’ve competed in 10 previous America’s Challenge races.   
• Leonid Tyukhtyaev and Sergey Grishin, Russia:  This year for the first time, the America’s Challenge welcomes a Russian team to the competition.  Although they are America’s Challenge rookies, Leonid Tyukhtyaev and Sergey Grishin are no strangers to international competition.  Both have competed twice in the Gordon Bennett, including in this year’s event where they came in fifth (and almost fourth – they were edged out by less than one kilometer).  Tyukhtyaev, the head of the Russian Ballooning Federation, is perhaps even better known for his achievements in airships, holding world records in both hot air and gas airships.

The America’s Challenge is the U.S. qualifier for the Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett.  The top three American finishers are generally invited by the Gas Division of the Balloon Federation of America to represent the United States in the Gordon Bennett; the 2013 event will be held in Nancy, in the northeastern part of France.

(Gas balloon race start image from file)

FMI: www.balloonfiesta.com