19th Model Balloon Meeting at Brigachtal

2004 was the year of the Penguin at Brigachtal! Ten years ago, in 1994, we had taken part at the Brigachtal Model Balloon Meeting for the first time, and this year, organizer Richard Bölling did us the honour of putting our Penguin on the badge which every participant gets as a souvenir.

And though, according to Richard, the sun always shines at Brigachtal, at first, all the 40 teams could do was wait. Saturday started with rain and lots of wind.


So, it was time for the alternative program. The model balloonists visited the clock museum at Furtwangen or the Zeppelin museum at Friedrichshafen to get around the day.

On the right: Louise and Sophie from the "Balloon Team Knechtel" conquered the playground model Zeppelin in front of the museum


In the afternoon, the rain had finally stopped, and the model balloons could take off for their first flight.

And it was probably one of the toughest contest flights one ever had! The winds were quite strong and we had to run over swampy fields and through high maize to get our balloons again.


Noone of the pilots managed the first task, which was to drop a marker inside a 50 meter circle around the fox balloon, which strangely had flown quite another direction than the following balloons. However, the second task, a race to a target line, was a bit easier.


Stranded on the field: The Penguin had mastered his task quite well. With a distance of only 40 centimeters to the target line, he took the lead after this first competition flight.


On Saturday evening, the traditional night glow at the childrens' hospital at Tannheim took place again.


Thick fog on Sunday morning at first made it impossible to continue the championship. Finally, the competition leaders decided for a short distance two task flight: First, a long horizontal rope had to be touched by a tape hanging from the balloons' basket, and after that, the pilots had to drop a marker on a target line.


Strong winds made it quite hard for the model balloonists to put up their envelopes. But soon, one after the other headed for the rope.


Touchdown - the Penguin had touched the rope, but was the result from task two good enough to win first place?


It was! And so, ten years after his first Brigachtal participation, Matthias did not only make it on the souvenir badge with his penguin, but also on the first place.

Winner photo - from left to right, standing: Jan Gloß, Matthias Schlegel, Kjell Abrahamson, Roger Wilhelm.
Kneeling: Richard Bölling, Nils Wilhelm.


The famous challenge trophy with the glass balloon, by the way, was won by Roger Wilhelm... that means, it will definitely return next year. And then, we'll again be excited if someone wins it for sure...

And we're already looking forward to the next Brigachtal Meetings - as Richard promised us, in the same, informal setting as usual, and without any 20-page regulations! *ggg* ;-)


The ranking list of the 18th Model Balloon Meeting at Brigachtal:

(The "0 points" for many of the participants resulted from the fact
that no points were given for the start this year - whyever that was.)


rank
balloon
pilot
points
1
Penguin
Matthias Schlegel
2488,0
2
Kieselbronn
Jan & Andrea Gloß
2477,0
3
NOKIA
Kjell Abrahamson
2442,0
4
D-ONILS
Nils Wilhelm
2400,0
5
D-MAREN
Roger Wilhelm
1910,0
6
Let'z Fätz
Rainer Vogler
1487,0
7
D-OHEXE
Maren Wilhelm
1248,5
8
Clown
Christian Navarre
998,0
badenova
Istvan Czernik
998,0
9
Projet J
Jerome B.
992,0
10
OO-BOE-tje
Luc De Wulf
990,0
11
Stefan Rupp
982,0
12
LX-HIP
Ben Schaack
890,0
13
multicoloured
Marcel Prevotat
880,0
14
D-OGRO
Wolfgang Groner
875,0
15
G-HONY
David Thomas
500,0
16
D-Seligenstadt
Erich Hinz
0,0
LX-RYE
Fernand Schaak
0,0
n.n. Malick
0,0
FFAM
Bernard Bilquey
0,0
SKY
Klaus-Dieter Jahnke
0,0
DoDo
Richard Alt
0,0
Dinkelacker
Michael Bölling
0,0
Cat
Werner Schlegel
0,0
Stuttgart
Götz Brachert
0,0
Warsteiner
Rainer Stiller
0,0
BallonTEC
Roman Doroshenko
0,0
multicoloured
Matthias Leister
0,0
PH-geert-2
Geert Plukker
0,0
D-HELMA
Jerome Bassier
0,0
Joceline Malick
0,0
Andy Booth
0,0
multicoloured
Sven Grenzner
0,0
Wolfgang Leibfritz
0,0
multicoloured
Eberhard Leibfritz
0,0
Lößnitztal
Karsten Knechtel
0,0
Bebing Auto
Bernard Hilsenkopf
0,0
ZickZackLogo
Olaf Schneider
0,0

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