ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Competitive ballooning is all about three things: speed, precision, and planning.
What exactly are pilots being judged on during a competition?
Well, every competition is different, and that has a lot to do with the event coordinator, who sets tasks for the pilots to complete.
Let’s run through what a normal competition day looks like:
First, about an hour before dawn, all the teams and organizers meet up during a pilot’s briefing. Here, they go over the weather forecast, safety precautions, and most importantly, for the pilots and their crews – the tasks they’ll be competing in.
‘Tasks’ are the individual challenges the pilots will be scored on, and they range from location objectives to complicated mid-air maneuvers and are often strung together like a scavenger hunt across the skies. Sometimes, these tasks are arranged to be performed in a specific order. At other times, the event coordinator may leave the field open and allow the competitors to plot their own course.
Once the pilots have a clear understanding of the tasks they are being scored on, they’ll set off. All the tasks are scored individually and are added up at the end of the competition where a winner will be declared.
Before we look at a few of these tasks, here are some things to remember about how piloting a hot air balloon works.
#1 NO STEERING
A pilot can only directly control their balloon in one axis: going up by firing the burners and going down by laying off the heat or venting hot air from the top of the envelope. They can also rotate the balloon, but that’s mostly preventing neck strain.
#2 THE MERCY OF THE WINDS
Invisible fickle, wind layers move in different directions at different elevations. Astute balloon pilots can rise up or drop down into different layers to catch the current, helping them plot a course across the sky using the envelope of their balloon like a sail. However, the pilot isn’t controlling the wind and can only react to changes in the wind current and harness what Mother Nature is providing.
#3 NO BRAKES
Just as the direction of the wind is constantly changing, so are the speeds of the wind, which is important for a pilot in the middle of a race. Another thing to take into consideration: if a pilot wants to maneuver into a different wind layer to change directions, the time it takes to climb up to that layer may set them off course, especially if the wind speeds are high in that lower current. So, a high wind speed may have an advantage in shaving time off a pilot’s run, but it also makes precise navigation far more difficult.
Now that you have some basics of Balloon piloting, let’s take a look at the tasks these pilots are being scored in. There are a bunch, so we’re only looking at a few, but you can go to Top Gun Ballooning’s website to see the full list.
Fly-in Task
The fly-in task is the bedrock for most of these competitions. Pilots choose a launch point and fly to another location, dropping a marker from the basket, usually a bean bag, as close to the marked target as possible.
Gordan Bennet
The Gordan-Bennet is like the Fly-in, but the event coordinator has selected an area near a target, and pilots drop their mark in the designated area as close to the mark as possible.
Elbow
The elbow is a maneuvering task, designed to test a pilot’s ability to make the most dramatic change in direction. If a pilot is heading north, they would raise up by 500 feet and grab a high-speed easterly wind. The name starts to make sense when you take a bird’s-eye-view of the course as the pilot’s flight path will look like your arm bending at the elbow.
Least Time
Finally, there’s the least time task. Another maneuvering score, but this time, the event coordinator has selected an area on the map, and pilots are being scored on who can move through that area in the least amount of time.
There’s also a “Most Time” task, which is being scored on how slowly a pilot moves through a set area.
