61st Gordon Bennett ready for take-off - Updates

The 61st Gordon Bennett event will take to the air on Friday (ETD 19:30) in Fribourg, Switzerland. Thanks to the host ANSP Skyguide the launch will be during daylight rather than the usual midnight launch.

As usual a large scale co-ordination with ANSPs has been undertaken during the past months to ensure safe passage for the balloons within the airspace.

As in previous years you can track the partcipating teams on a live traker provided by the origanisers here: https://gordonbennett.aero/livetracking/

The teams this year are:

AUS1 (Dariusz Brzozowski & Steve Griffin)
AUT2 (Thomas Lewetz & Christian Wagner)
BEL01 (Philippe De Cock & Geert Peirsman)
CZE01 (Jan Smrčka & Ales Vasicek)
ESP01 (Anulfo Gonzalez Redondo & Angel Aguirre Rial)
FRA01 (Vincent Leÿs & Christophe Houver)
FRA02 (Pascal Joubert & Hervé Moine)
FRA03 (Benoît Péterlé & Benoît Pelard)
GBR01 (John Rose & Colin Butter)
GER01 (Himke Hilbert & Dominik Haggeney)
GER02 (Dr. Heinz-Otto Lausch & Tobias Lausch)
GER03 (Matthias Zenge & Benjamin Eimers)
JPN01 (Sabu Ichiyoshi & Komei Hashimoto)
LTU01 (Komza Robertas & Danielius Komza)
POL01 (Mateusz Rękas & Jacek Bogdański)
POL02 (Krzysztof Zapart & Bazyli Dawidziuk)
SUI01 (Kurt Frieden & Pascal Witprächtiger)
SUI02 (Laurent Sciboz & Nicolas Tièche)
SUI03 (Walter Gschwendtner & Max Krebs)
USA01 (Peter Cuneo & Barbara Fricke)
USA02 (Cheri White & Mark Sullivan)

Two time champion Kurt Frieden and Pascal Witprächtiger will be one of the hot favourites.
Walter Gschwendtner and Max Krebs also flying for the host nation in team '03' are participating in their 8th and 17th Gordon Bennett.  

Benny Eimers with team GER03 is the son of Willy, nicknamed “Record Man”, who participated in the Gordon Bennett World Cup 26 times and won the race four times. The French teams are also serious contenders, especially the FRA-1 team of Vincent Leÿs, who won the race eight times. The Spanish team which came 3rd in 2016 and the American team which came 4th in 2016 could be contenders.

We will be updating progress of the balloons tracks here on ATC Network.

Update 08/09 23:45pm All 21 teams heading NE to GER. @skyguide will co-ordinate with @dfs_de as balloons cross airspace. @GB2017FR

Update 09/09 02:00 Tracks show teams heading from German @dfs_de airspace towards Austria @austro_control and Czech @letovyprovoz @GB2017FR

Update 09/09 11:00 Lead teans are into PANSA airspace.

Update 09/09 16:00 JAP1 is first team to land near Gutow in Poland.

Update 09/09 23:50 13 Teams have landed, 8 still in the air. FRA1 found the Belarus/Kalingrad airspace gap. 

Update 10/09 12:00 Only five teams still flying. FRA1 have set the target. Landed in Estonia @ 1834km. 

Update 10/09 22:00 All teams have now landed. The few teams that were aiming for the airspace gap had to land due to bad weather. FRA1 win GB2017. Congratulations to FRA1 and all the teams.