17th Balloon Meeting
and
7th Model Balloon Meeting at Landshut

After there had been no model balloon meeting at Landshut in 2007, we were back in 2008 - and all the model balloonists were happy to see each other again! :-)

Andreas Schmiauke had come to the event quite spontaneously - he just strapped his model balloon cloud hopper on his motorbike (the burner was looking out to the rear) and gave it a go!

The meeting was opened by the night glow on Friday evening - and this photographer caught quite a special view, as the balloons are reflecting in a wing of an airplane on the Landshut airfield.

On Saturday morning, the competition flights started. The model balloons first had to catch Martin Kaiser's Fox balloon, and afterwards they had to fly the longest distance possible within the borderlines of the airfield.

The wind was blowing quite exactly along the runway, which was perfect for the pilots.

After having landed with our Cat balloon, Werner was confronted with a very curious living specimen of this genus. Maybe it recognized its plastic sister floating in the sky?

The big ballons had to do a fly in to the airfield that morning - only the team from Augsburg made it. And Bastian seemed to land on their envelope here... ;-)

In the afternoon, the famous Lansdhut crew tasks had to be solved. How do you cross a distance of ten meters with two persons on three bricks, not touching the floor? This was only one of the puzzles the crews had to face.

The evening flight for the big balloons had to be cancelled, as a strong wind would have blown them right into the control zone of Munich Airport. So, the model balloonists had to stand in and do the show.

Packing the Penguin: It's more than rumours that Matthias often has very nice help when deflating his balloon...

... even if Pingu has to be rescued from a small meadow between two maize fields! ;-)

Eventually, wind was slowing down, and Bastian could do a night flight with our new balloon together with Michael Kampmann.

Partytime: After having returned from the flight, Matthias an Bastian got their guitars and celebrated a wicked camp party with the other balloonists that had come there with their tents.

In such a fine mood, it may even happen that a small funny idea ("A little night glow would be cool...") develops into a real fuss!

Nevertheless, all the pilots were fit on Sunday morning, and so the big and small balloons could launch together for their final competition flight.

For the first time here with his new blue balloon was Ingo Schabmüller-Jahn from Kehlheim (upper center).

After the flights, all the model balloon participants put up their balloons for a group photo.

Winner's photo: Matthias was acting so thoughtless with his ballooning talent that eventually he won first place - though he should have been a little bit more restrained, as he was also the competition leader... ;-)

We say thank you to all the balloonists for coming and are looking forward to the 8th Model Balloon Meeting in 2009! :-)

Pinguin²

Matthias Schlegel

4205

Gosau Junior

Jakob Kaiser

3604

Ballooning

Bastian Schwarz

3566

The Face

Michael Kampmann

3509

Cat

Werner Schlegel

2940

Fox

Martin Kaiser

2450

multicoloured

Andreas Schmiauke

1415

D-ORENG

Ingo Schabmüller-Jahn

1367

D-OFEUER

Frank Schnelle

652

TAV-Heinzel

Peter Heinzel

no start

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