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14th International Youth Camp will be in Radesín, Czech

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Invitation to participate in the 14th IYC:

14th International Youth Camp 2014

Dear young people,

We, the organisers of the 14th IYC, are very happy to invite you to the 14th International Youth Camp 2014! We welcome all young people who want to fly in a balloon and have the experience of a summer ballooning youth camp in Europe. The last few editions were in Germany, this year we’ve partnered up with Kubicek Balloons, and are very glad that we will be able to welcome you to the beautiful town of Radesin in the Czech Republic. We organise this summer camp, because we want to make our beautiful sport accessible to young people and to build a young international balloon community.

Among other things, our programme will consist of the following activities:

  • ballooning & chasing the balloon
  • introduction to the safety of ballooning
  • explore the surrounding area – visiting the Kubicek Balloons factory
  • campfire romanticism – event education games
  • swimming – football – volleyball
  • model ballooning
  • and a lot more!

Flying balloon is only possible at good weather in early morning or late evening, so all our activities depend very much on the weather conditions. We will often decide situational what is possible to do, ‘safety first’ is key in this decision. Our accommodation will be at a camp site on the Radesin Castle estate, where we will spend the nights in large tents. The meals will be cooked by all participants with the help of our kitchen team on site.

Date: 2 August 2014- 9 August 2014
Location: Radesin, Czech Republic
Organisers: Tim Diller and Jop van Hooft
Age: From 14 to 24 Years
Fee: 150 €
Register on: www.ballooniyc.com
Deadline: 30 April 2014

After the deadline we’ll contact the admitted participants! After that you have to organize your trip to Radesin by yourself. We will send you the participants list so you can travel together with other participants. If you have questions, simply get in touch with us.

We’re really looking forward to see you!. You may pass this invitation on to your friends and acquaintances, everybody is welcome.
Take care, good flights and we hope to welcome you this summer!

Kind regards,
Tim Diller and Jop van Hooft

The Junior World Champion won the 18th Hot Air Balloon Championship

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Rokas Kostiuskevicius – who won the 1st Junior Wolrd Championship in last year  – won the 18th Hot Air Balloon Championship in Wloclawek, Poland. His father, Rimas Kostiuskevicius got the silver medal and  Ivan Ayala got the bronse medal who had the silver medal in the last European Championship.

The winner 18th Hot Air Balloon Championship

The winners 18th Hot Air Balloon Championship

The veryyoung  Dominic Berford finished on the 4th place, who know his family name well. Other results:

1 17 Rokas KOSTIUSKEVICIUS LTU 14036
2 18 Rimas KOSTIUSKEVICIUS LTU 13876
3 2 Ivan AYALA ALCALDE ESP 13705
4 52 Dominic BAREFORD GBR 13679
5 1 Stefan ZEBERLI SUI 13305
6 71 Peter OLSSON SWE 12989
7 30 Bartosz NOWAKOWSKI POL 12764
8 13 Uwe SCHNEIDER GER 12749
9 47 Christoffer MUNDT DEN 12536
10 29 Ivan MENYAYLO RUS 12509
…
31 39 David LINEK CZE 10225
…
34 41 Petr KUBICEK CZE 10114
…
37 42 Michael SUCHY CZE 9489
38 68 Janos KONECSNI HUN 9395
…
54 40 Pavel KOSTRHUN CZE 8222
55 69 Peter NAGY HUN 8192
…
76 70 Sandor VEGH HUN 5475

We had 5 flights and 18 tasks. The Event start with nice weather but the Autumn arrived after with fog and rain.
A short video about the by Tóth László.

18th FAI Hot Air Balloon European Championship 2013

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18th FAI Hot Air Balloon European Championship 2013The European Championship started yesterday with a boring long General Briefing. The 2nd European Championship run with the CIA loggers but without a big advantage. The director, Mathijs R. De Bruijn decided to use GPS altitude instead of baromeric. The second surprise was no 2D just 3D scoring only. A pilot mentioned on the General Briefing:

“They are forcing pilots to fly in windy conditions in area with many powerlines as low as possible. This is not about pilot skills, this is very, very unsafe. I have no idea why we cannot have 2D scoring.”

Me personaly don’t understand why they step back in the time. These loggers are worked very well on many Events in different countries with different scoring software and scorers.

I start to use the FAI loggers at very beginning and never had any problem. We didn’t have any issue with the loggers during the Czech Nationals a month ago too and I’m sure the FAI loggers are working well!

I'm participate here with my Czech freinds as the team manager.

I’m participate here with my Czech freinds as the team manager.

We got a spectacular Opening Ceremony after the General Briefing with dancers and airshow without welcome drink and food.

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MdB set three tasks today morning: HWZ, HWZ and JDG. It happened little bit windy condition but most of the pilots could reach the MMAs. The provisional results are available here. The afternoon briefing is cancelled because the rainy and windy condition.

Nice sunrise before the first flight

Nice sunrise before the first flight

The weather forecast promise the next flight for tomorrow morning. Let’s hope the best.

Balloons of Gordon Bennett 2013 started

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In 45 minutes, from 5:45 a.m., the 18 balloons flew! The 57th Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett began in a small light drizzle. The 36 pilots and co-pilots (from 10 countries) will try to steal the title held by France with Vincent Leys. The competition can be followed in live on:

tracks

For the first hours, the balloons take the direction of East. The routers on the ground will ensure the baton to guide them and allow them to travel the greatest distance. A half of the balloons are still on low levele to East but some of them going around 2500 feet and direction of North. Same destination to everybody:  greatest distance with a 1000 m3 gas balloon in the contest area. Good luck for everybody!

Gordon Benett 2013 start

Gordon Benett 2013 start – photo: Martine Besnainou

Electronic Notice Board – Czech Nationals 2013

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Czech Balloon National Championsip logo 2013Electronic Notice Board
17th Czech National Hot Air Balloon Championship Radesín, 7th – 11th August 2013

 

 

Pavel Kostrohun

The Czech Champion in 2013 is Pavel Kostrhun

 Results 1 – 15 final

Measuring Report Sheets

Flight 5 – 10/08/2013 pm – Task Sheet

Flight 5 10/08/2013 am – Task Sheet, track of Map A 09/08/2013 pm – cancelled

Briefing is cancelled, next Briefing will be 0530 10/08/2013.

Flight 4 09/08/2013 am – Task Sheet

Flight 3 08/08/2013 pm – Task Sheet

Flight 2 08/08/2013 am – Task Sheet

Flight 1 07/08/2013 pm – Task Sheet

PZs, CLPs and Targets waypoints. – 17:00 07/08/2013 

Built-up area of Ždár nad Sázavou and Nové Město Moravě.

PZ Nr. Colour Coordinate Radius m. Alt. ft. MSL

Reason

PZ11

Red

8307 / 6436

300

2500

Duck farm

General Briefing Information Latest version of the Official Map in TIFF format and OZF2 format (Androzic compatible). – 15:00 06/08/2013  Event Director’s mobile: +420 722 774 390. List of pilots – 16:00 07/08/2013

1 Suchý Michael, OK-0883  CZE
2 Vomáčka Tomáš, OK-1954  CZE
3 Olšanová Markéta, OK-9004  CZE
5 Vítek Petr, OK-2002  CZE
6 Línek David, OK-0055  CZE
7 Kubíček Petr, OK-0900  CZE
8 Kostrhun Pavel, OK-2667  CZE
9 Měřínský Pavel, OK-3366  CZE
10 Almer Johann, OE-RJA  AUT
11 Hora Tomáš, OK-5010  CZE
12 Garab Szabolcs, HA-756  HUN
13 Koupa Martin, OK-1612  CZE
14 Seigeot Clément, F-HOTT  FRA
15 Kubát Michal, OK-3008  CZE
16 Dillinger Pavel, OK-4021  CZE
17 Habán Tomáš, OK-2803  CZE
18 Staňa Libor, OK-7771  CZE
19 Škorpík Miloslav, OK-9003  CZE

Schedule

  • Wednesday, 7th Aug, 2013
    • registration for competition – 9:00 am – 12:30 pm
    • general briefing 1:30 pm
    • first competition evening flight
  • Thursday, 8th Aug, 2013
    • two morning and evening competition flights
  • Friday, 9th Aug, 2013
    • two morning and evening competition flights
  • Saturday, 10th Aug, 2013
    • two morning and evening competition flights
    • closing ceremony
    • farewell party
  • Sunday, 11th Aug, 2013
    • free morning flight or spare competition flight and closing ceremony
    • departure of competitors

CIA World Hot Air Balloon Ranking List 2013

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John-Petrehn

John Petrehn

The FAI Ballooning Commission (CIA) has updated the CIA World Hot Air Balloon Ranking List ahead of the start of the 2013 competition season. John Petrehn, Nick Donner and Stefan Zeberli lead the rankings which count 918 pilots (of which about 7% per cent are female) from 39 nations in total.

John Petrehn (see picture on the left © Cindy Petrehn) from USA tops the rankings following his performances at several World Championships: gold medals in 2010 and 2006 and a silver medal in 2012.

The 2nd place goes to Nick Donner, also from USA, who climbed on top of the podium at the 20th FAI World Hot Air Balloon Championship in Battlecreek (Michigan, USA) in 2012 and finished second in 2006.

Stefan Zeberli

Stefan Zeberli

The bronze medal taken at the 9th FAI World Hot Air Airship Championship in 2010 brought Swiss pilot Stefan Zeberli (see picture on the right) to the third step of the ranking list.

About the CIA World Hot Air Balloon Ranking List
The purpose of the CIA World Hot Air Ranking List is to show a ranking of the top hot air balloon pilots of the world and provide a performance comparison among them. The list is established by a calculation formula that includes the results of the last five World Championships resp. World Air Games and to a lesser degree the competitor’s national ranking position.

No any Hungarian pilots are in top 30 but 4 Czech are there. Three Hungarians was in the top 30 at 2000 and only one Czech.

How many pilots are in the top 30 at 2000 and 2013

How many pilots are in the top 30 at 2000 and 2013

Guinness World Record Attempt: Asia – Europe flight

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The participants of International Sport Competition of Hot Air Balloons “Sky Fair – 2013” – which was FAI Sporting Event – made a special flight after the contest program. We travelled from Kungur (host city, Perm region) to near Pervouralsk (satellite city of Yekaterinburg) at evening 5th July 2013. There is monument with a huge column which shows the border of Europe and Asia  (56.870553, 60.047951). Twenty-two balloons are arrived to the meeting point. The distance is 250 km between Kungur and Pervouralsk which is not so much but the journey was hard because the Russian bus and roads. We had a good lunch and some rest. The organisers provided a nice folklore show too.

Folklore show at border of Europe and Asia

Folklore show at border of Europe and Asia

Some balloons are prepared to take-off close to the monument and the rests are moved to a nearby glade after the briefing in the Asian side. We didn’t plan long flight because huge forests, big lakes and few glades were in the flying area. The destination was only crossing the border of the two continents which was successful.

Briefing before the flight

Briefing before the flight

Launch from Asia

Launch from Asia

We recorded and scored the flights with same tools as the competition flights. The officials of the FAI Sporting Event checked the tracks of GPS loggers after the flights. One pilot turned on the GPS logger during the flight. We can’t record his take-off position but that was the first documented Event were many hot air balloons flight over the Europe – Asia border. The organiser will apply for the approval of Guinness Record.

Europe - Asia flight

The green line is the border of Europe and Asia. The tracks of the balloons are red.

Asia Europe flight. We started at first and we flew southernmost.

Asia Europe flight. We started at first and we flew southernmost.

Mor photos from the Event are here, here, here and here.

Sky Fair – 2013, Kungur, Russia

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Twenty-four competitors entered to the Event and five fiesta pilots participated too.  We made seven flights and twenty-five tasks. I had to cancel one flight only because the windy weather. All task sheets, measuring report sheets results and other information published on the Electronic Notice Board: http://balloon.hu/kungur2013/.

The contest area is with open fields, fields under crops and wooded, rivers, lakes, foothills areas. The road network is not the best and I had to reconsider the bad road definition but the local drivers help us so solve these problems. The organiser provided nice excursions for the participants too: visiting the Ice Cave, boat trip, visiting a Monastery, etc.
These teams of the organisers and officials are ready to run category one Event in Kungur too.

You have to come next year. It’s an interesting and great place. Must to see!

Top six pilots:

1. Mamoru Endo JAP 20164 points
2. Sergej Latypov RUS 19552 points
3. Numata Minoru JAP 18536 points
4. Igor Starkov RUS 18225 points
5. Aleksandr Dultsev RUS 16189 points
6. Valerij Latypov RUS 16020 points
2013-06-29 19.59.47

Monument of Nikita, the Russian Ikarus in the Park of Aeronauts

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Park of Aeronauts

2013-06-29 20.05.39

Park of Aeronauts

 

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Opening Ceremony

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Memorial to the victims of 2nd World War Hungarian in Kungur cemetery.

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Billboard of the Event

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“Rafting” (boating) with the Japanese teams

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Marker drop

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Andrey the chief organiser

Europe

Europe

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Asia

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Eurasia

 

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The winner is…

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… Mamoru Endo

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Closing Ceremony

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Kungur

2013-06-28 20.03.29

Kungur

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Kungur

2013-06-28 20.11.20

Kungur

2013-06-28 20.28.51

Kungur

2013-06-28 20.55.12

One of three prison is in Kungur. The churches on photos are in prison.

2013-06-28 21.36.34

Kungur

2013-06-29 19.36.11

Kungur

SAMSUNG SAMSUNG SAMSUNG SAMSUNG SAMSUNG

First flight of Dutch Balloon Trophy 2013

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The wind measuring at 2300 gave winds of over 20 knts and the forcast was not much better. When a thunderstorm started at 0100 were close to cancelling the first flight but decided to do the windmeasuring at 0300 to see what had happened.

First flight of DBT 2013

What a surprise, winds below 10 knts in the piball and pretty stable atmosphere in the forecast. We can see a flight in this forecast.

The tasks were set, the wind measured again, the tasks were changed, target teams send away. A cold front is coming our way so the task briefing is short and compact so we can start the launch period as soon as sunrise.

First flight of DBT 2013

Within 20 minutes 25 balloons have launched for a fast flight with minimal flight conditions, they are of for a Pilot Declared Goal, Judge Declared Goal and Hesitation Waltz.
Now we are waiting for everyone to come back safely and we can start calculating the results.
What a morning…..

Sanne Haarhuis, Deputy Director

Sanne Haarhuis, Deputy Director DBT 2013

The task Sheet of the first flight on the Electronic Notice Board.

Czech National Balloon Championship 2013

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Czech Balloon National Championsip logo 2013Come to compete, fly, improve your rank list position, raise self-confidence, make new friends and see the beautiful landscape of Czech Highlands from above!
Ultimate Ballooning club organizes the Czech NationalHot-Air Balloon Championship, August 7th – 11th 2013. The championship is held under the auspices of the Czech Balloon Federation.

One of my favorite Event: nice people, nice landscape, competitive pilots and good beers.
The Event will run with FAI loggers without observers. Maximum of twenty competition balloons is allowed but 5-6 place is available for foriegn pilots.
You may find the Invitation and Entry form here and information here.

Czech Balloon National Championsip 2012

Measuring Team of Czech Balloon National Championsip 2012

A Measuring Team of Czech Balloon National Championsip 2012