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| 1. News 2. Results
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News and Results Archive
To get back to the main News and Results page click here Aug 2010 - Election of New Chairman
A picture of the committee is shown on the right. The names from left to right (front row) Andrew Holly, Stephen Jones,
(back row) Rupert Stanley, Richard Parry, Jo Slade, Richard Platt.
August 2010 - Change of Venue for GP3 Unfortunately, the security at RAF Alconbury have finally got round to realising what they were letting themselves in for and are unwilling to grant sufficient access to make the event viable there. Anyway, the short version is that we will now base ourselves at the Sackville grass roots meet. The location is: SACKVILLE FLYING CLUB Sackville Lodge Farm RISELEY Bedfordshire MK44 1BS This will give us full use of the facilities including refuelling, camping for those interested and we can participate in their catering arrangements. You will also be able to fly up to 5 slots over the w/e although we will only run the competition over the normal 3 slots. On the downside, we will need to complete their entry form (please return to me with you Comps Club entry form) and their landing cards. We will be encouraging new pilots to have a go at competition ballooning by dropping a marker at some fairly easy targets – apparently about half the entrants so far have expressed an interest. Hopefully we can encourage these pilots to get more involved in our future events when socialising at the bar / hog roast etc. For more details of the grass roots meet see: http://www.grassrootsballooning.org.uk/index.html Entry forms can be found on the downloads page.
The date has been set for the EGM of the BBAC Competitions Club. It will be held after all the competition flights at the Nationals in Pidley. You can download the agenda from the downloads page.
Although Lindsay Muir was not keen on women only events, she took part and came second behind Gabriela Slavec from Slovenia with Jolanta Matejczuk from Poland placing 3rd. Having spoken to many of the Pilots there, she now has a better understanding of why this type of event is so important to some of the up and coming women pilots. Congratulations to the organisers for a well run event and many thanks to all the locals for being so friendly. Full results can be seen on on the web by using this link.
Many thanks to the Event Director (Andrew Holly) and his team of officials for a job very well done in testing weather conditions. Congratulations go to Davils Usill in his new balloon (Window on the World) who took the honours.
May 2010 During the first Grand Prix of the season a crazy idea formed.... It appears that there are several musicians within the Comps Club and there seems to be a growing agreement for them all to bring their instruments to the Nationals at Pidley. If you would like to be part of this new addition, please e-mail webmistress with what instrument you will be bringing, you can then be added to the growing list and we'll organise a list of possible music and get some dots out to people as soon as possible. . April 2010 - 54th Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett
Launching from Bristol on Saturday 25th September 2010 this is sure to be an exciting and spectacular event. The event comes to GB as David Hempleman-Adams and Jon Mason won the race in 2008 flying for 74.24 hours and cover 1,767 kms from Albuquerque to Milwaukee. The race comes with honour and prestige, but without finance, so we are looking to companies and individuals to sponsor this historic, unique and exciting event. More details www.gordonbennett2010.com or email info@GB2010.net March 2010 During the AGM on 7th March there was a proposal from Richard Parry about a new task to make the Grand Prix events a little more fun for all pilots. A new task was adopted Joker Pilot Declared Goal (PDG). The details of which can be found in a pdf here. March 2010 After the AGM on 7th March there were some changes to the committee. Rachel Pointer and Jo Slade will be jointly taking on the role of Chief Observer. Rupert Stanley has now side stepped into the role of Membership Secretary and Richard Parry has been welcomed onto the committee. Zuz Bryant has taken on the Webmaster role and if you have items that you think should/could be included on the website please let her know on webmaster@ballooncomps.org.uk. Zuz will be making her way through the site over the next couple of weeks in order to make sure it is up to date. Aug 2009 - Richard Parry gets Bronze at European Championship
For full results click here Aug 2009 - British Pilots bring home WBT medals British pilots Richard Parry and David Bareford came through to take silver and bronze medals at the LUXGSM World Balloon Trophy event in Luxembourg. 25 teams had gathered in Echternach for the prestigious FAI category 1 event directed by Claude Weber and assisted by Zoltan Palhegyi. The organisation and hospitality were superb which together with the good weather and new Flytech loggers made for a wonderful event. The new loggers were relatively simple to use, provided the pilot with a secondary altimeter and other data, plus they proved faultless in their ability to provide the balloon data required for the scoring teams. No backup GPS downloads were required from any balloon team and the Andre brothers, who designed the software, earned some well deserved praise. Two slots were lost due to adverse weather and cancelled by SMS in good time, but we still managed 18 tasks over 5 flights with 12 different types of tasks including a FON and 3 PDGs declared via the new loggers. The British Armada comprised Messrs Bareford, Holly, Green and Parry and provided a powerful challenge to the German Luftwaffe but in the end it was the local hero Nico Betzen who won the day overall. There is a strong rumour that Messrs Bareford and Green, who scooped €4,000 of cash in the final FIN flight to the target on Lake Echternach, will be buying a few beers in the gliding club at Husbands Bosworth during Nationals week! You can see the full results and task sheets from Luxembourg by clicking here. June 2009 - UK delivers World Class performance at World Air Games The 2009
World Air Games was held at various locations around Turin and covered
many aviation sports. The WAG is essentially the Olympic Games of
aviation sport and includes aerobatics, microlighting, skydiving, gliding,
aeromodelling - and of course ballooning. The ballooning competition
was held at Mondovi and gathered together 28 of the best pilots in the
world with invitations only going out to countries who were highly placed
at the last two world championships. The UK received 2 invitations
which were filled by Andrew Holly and Neil Gabriel. The week started
very well for Neil who took an early lead in the competition and although he
lost some momentum, he finished 4th overall. Andrew fought hard to
achieve his 15th place and would likely have done even better had he not
offered to take off first on the last flight in order to relay back wind information
to Neil and his team. March 2009 - Team coordinators recognised by National body Our recent pair of team coordinators has been honoured by the British Balloon and Airship Club at their Annual General Meeting. Both Andy Booth and Alan Scrase are worthy recipients of BBAC Diplomas for their hard work and dedication. At international events such as the World and European Championships, the role of team coordinator begins with providing all the British pilots with as much information on wind and weather as possible, but it also extends to a wide variety of logistical support tasks. Their aim is to assist the British pilots in acting as a cohesive group in order for each to benefit from the other - this has been shown greatly to assist the overall performance of the British Team. November
2008 – Triumphant
Trip To Tochigi David
Bareford has
won the challenging Tochigi
Hot Air Balloon International Championship
against strong competition from the Americans and the locals. Going
into the final flight, he was a close second, but U.S. Champion, Nick
Donner,
had a poor second task allowing David to come through. Richard Parry
and Lindsay Muir
also made the top 10 with Rick Vale, Marcus Green and
Crispin Williams making
the top 20 out of 34. September
2008 – British Team
make good at World Championship September was the month when British pilots were able to show off their skills at the World Championship in Austria where 100 balloons competed for the honours. We were rewarded with no less than 2 pilots in the top 10 - Mike Howard came 5th and Lindsay Muir came 9th. Not far behind was David Bareford in 20th place. These results will stand us in good stead for the invitation process for the World Air Games 2009 and the next Worlds in 2010. The final results sheet can be seen here Aug
2008 – British Nationals a stunning success The UK Nationals was held within the French pre-Europeans event at Brissac, near Angers in the Loire Valley. The town of Brissac welcomed us with open arms with many of the residents offering places for the crews in their own homes. It was a popular and highly successful event with British pilots taking all the top six places! You can download the full results pack (1.6MB in PDF format) using this link. Aug
2008 – Brits in strong showing at LUXGSM Trophy Four
teams travelled to The
event is characterised by interesting countryside, challenging task
setting from Claude Weber (he gave us a 5-task flight this year), and
excellent organisation. All the British pilots ended in the top 10 with Richard Parry in 9th, Marcus Green in 7th, David Bareford in 5th, and Neil Gabriel taking his third podium finish at the event by coming in 3rd. Detailed results for the event are available here: www.wbt.lu Jul 2008 – Two podium places for UK pilots at WAG test eventFour
British pilots, Andrew Holly, Richard Parry, Ian Chadwick and Geoff Grimes
competed in the World Air Games test event held in Mondovi, Italy, from 8th to 13th July
2008.
The
contest proved extremely successful for the Brits, with Richard Parry
bringing home the Silver Medal and Andrew Holly bagging the Bronze.
The honours continued further down the field, with Geoff Grimes
winning a task in his first ever competition.
Local Italian pilot Paulo Bonanno took the top prize at the end of
the week.
At the prestigious test event for the World Air Games in 2009, pilots were asked to perform 16 tasks over seven flights under the directorship of David Levin and Mathijs de Bruijn. By all accounts the task setting was pretty advanced with some very complex 3D timed tasks which were great to fly, with lots of tactics and thought behind them. Those attending say they thoroughly enjoyed the competition: “Fantastic organization and great directors in David and Mathijs” Full results from the event can be found here: http://www.debruijn.de/results/2008/PreWAG/BSPREWAG.HTM May 2008 - Mike Howard takes bronze in Germany
Three British teams competed at the German Nationals in Frankenthal south Germany from the 29th April to the 4th May.
After 7 flights and 23 tasks, Uwe Schneider won with 17642 points followed by Sven Gohler with 17368 points.
British Champion Mike Howard placed 3rd, (17187 points) and Rick Vale placed
19th (10823 points). March 2008 Our Chief observer, Rupert Stanley, has been honoured by the British Balloon and Airship Club at their Annual General Meeting. Rupert was a worthy recipient of a BBAC Diploma for his services to Competition Ballooning. March 2008 The Club is embarking on an important new initiative that is designed to encourage more new long-term members whilst still providing a worthwhile element of serious competition for established pilots. We are changing Grand Prix 1 and 2 to be in a new 'GP-light' format, where more training will be the focus and where both new and established pilots will have the opportunity to push themselves without running the risk of compromising their chances of competing for the UK. The events will be of a more social nature and will include worthwhile prizes, both cash prizes and hopefully items of ballooning equipment. January 2008 The event diary for the new year is now published on the Diary page of our site. November 2007 - UK Pilot takes Silver in Tochigi David Bareford once again demonstrated his skill and experience with Japanese conditions to be placed 2nd in the 2007 Tochigi Hot Air Balloon Championship. Apart from reinforcing his reputation as one of the world's top pilots he also bagged a handy Yen 1,000,000. Marcus Green netted Yen 100,000 for an excellent 9th place out of the 32 competitors. The event follows on from the hugely successful World Honda Grand Prix event which had been held for several years at Motegi Twin-ring. The Tochigi area is known for its stunning scenery and challenging winds. The full results and other information can be downloaded from: http://www.exem-balloon.com/tochigi2007hp/ September 23rd 2007 - UK Pilot wins Worlds test event in Austria Richard Parry took first place in the 2007 OMV Challenge event in Hofkirchen, Styria, Austria. The contest was held as a testing event for the World Championship which is being held in the same location this time next year. Accordingly it attracted a strong field of 41 pilots from across the World, and so we are particularly pleased that Richard took first place. Joe Heartsill from the USA came 2nd and Shawn Mackinga from Switzerland claimed bronze. The full results can be downloaded from here: http://omv07.webernet.lu September 16th 2007 - Inter-regional Championship result confirmed The 2007 Inter-regional Championship was decided at the Pidley Grand Prix. Competitors formed into teams of three pilots each representing their BBAC region. The final result was:
September 8th 2007 - BBC News covers Grand Prix 3 LIVE The results from this event are posted below. September 2007 - British Team attracts intense media interest at the European Championship August 2007 - British Team strong in European Championship July 23rd 2007 - Nationals succumbs to regional flooding June 2007 - Nationals starts media frenzy March 2007 - Honours for distinguished service Competition ballooning on Radio 2 Nationals in the news The success stories from the British Nationals 2006
Visit this page frequently to see the lastest scores from our Grand Prix events and National Championships. 2008 UK Pilot Ranking 2008 World Championship. Hofkirchen, Austria 13-20 September 2008 2008 British National Championship. Brissac-Quince, Loire Valley 21-25 Aug 2008 2008 Grand Prix 4 final results. Pidley, Cambs 27-28 September 2008 2008 Grand Prix 3 final results. Husbands Bosworth Airfield 26-27 July 2008 2008 Grand Prix 2 final results. Sudeley Castle 14-15 June 2008
2007 Grand Prix 3 final results. Pidley 8-9 September 2007
2006 UK Pilot Rankings 2006 Grand Prix series overall scores 2006 British National Hot-Air Balloon Championships. Pidley 28th Aug- 2nd Sept 2006 2006 Grand Prix 1 results. Holt Heath 13/14 May 06 2006 Grand Prix 2 results. Stanford Hall 1-2 July 2006 2006 Grand Prix 3 results. Dursley 5/6 August 2006
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Andrew Holly was elected as the new Chairman of the Competitions Club at the EGM today. 
The Gordon Bennett Gas Balloon Race comes to Great Britain for the first time since the race first launched in 1906. A balloon race of endurance and great challenge, the balloon which flies the further wins in a race which can last four or five days - that's a long time to be in a wicker basket!
British pilot
Richard Parry Came through to take the Bronze behind Stefan Zebrili (Swiss) and Francois Messines (France) in a hard fought Championship. David Bareford came 4th, Neil Gabriel 25th and Andrew Holly 35th, this meant all our pilots were in the top half of the leaderboard and so Team GB took the overall Team Prize.