Going the distance: The 66th Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett gas balloon race is off and flying

Oct. 7—At the Anderson Abruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum, a giant map of North America hangs on a wall.

The border between the United States and Canada is divided by a thick red line, the shape of Maine instantly recognizable in the top right side.

Across the room, three glass trophies in shades of sapphire, emerald and a dark, dusky purple sit waiting, while computers hum nearby.

This is the command center of the 66th Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett.

Visitors to the Balloon Museum will have the opportunity to see the command center as it tracks the 17 ballooning teams as they fly out of Albuquerque to destinations unknown.

After more than a two-hour delay to wait for optimal conditions, the Gordon Bennett launched just after 8:30 p.m. Saturday. The Poland-1 team of Krzysztof Zapart and Piotr Halas led the balloons into the night sky after winning the lottery draw to determine the order the balloons would take off.

"The gas balloons usually launch in the evening," says Ben Anello, with the Gordon Bennett command center. "With the sun out of the picture, an evening launch offers the balloons more stability. Then, when the sun rises, the balloons will climb higher."

Anello says to think of the flight as a sine wave, with the balloons rising in the sun and lowering during the night hours.

"They get too high if launched during the day," Anello says.

During previous America's Challenge races, which is hitting pause this year due to the Gordon Bennett, Anello says the command center was a repurposed TV trailer.

Anello says having the command center at the Balloon Museum gives them an opportunity "to show the public what gas ballooning is all about."

Two-person crews will monitor the balloons 24/7 in six-hour shifts from launch until the final balloon touches down and its chase crew reaches them. However, the amount of time in air doesn't determine the winner, the distance flown from Albuquerque does.

The longest distance traversed in a single Gordon Bennett was in 2005, which began in Albuquerque. Belgium pilots Bob Berben and Benoît Siméons flew a distance of 2,112.9 miles, breaking the previous record set in 1912 of 1,361 miles.

Defending Gordon Bennett champions, father-and-son duo Wilhelm Eimers and Benjamin Eimers, will be representing Germany in the balloon Leonid. Wilhelm Eimers holds the men's record for Gordon Bennett races flown with 29, winning five. Nine countries will be represented in total, and each country can have three teams maximum.

Representing the United States are Noah Forden and Brenda Cowlishaw flying Intrepid; Barbara Fricke and Peter Cuneo in Foxtrot Charlie; and Mark Sullivan, who leads all American men with 25 Gordon Bennett races flown, and Cheri White, who holds the record for the most Gordon Bennett races by a woman, in Snowbird.

Forden won the 2021 America's Challenge with Bert Padelt as his co-pilot. Padelt was originally scheduled to fly in this year's Gordon Bennett with Forden, but will miss the race as he waits for perfect weather to attempt the first Trans-Atlantic crossing in a hydrogen gas balloon.

Cowlishaw will make her first Gordon Bennett appearance, though she is no stranger to gas balloon racing. She flew Intrepid with Brian Duncan in the 2019 America's Challenge, where the duo finished fourth.

On Thursday morning, Forden and Cowlishaw were at Balloon Fiesta Park, where piles of sand waited along the western fence. Using a scale and several helping hands, sand was poured into bags, 25 pounds at a time and carefully weighed with a scale.

Forden says the balloons carry 1,000 pounds of sand for ballast. The amount of ballast required to race out of Albuquerque is less than a start at sea level, due to the city's altitude.

Kim Vesely, a volunteer who works with the America's Challenge and was helping with the Gordon Bennett, says the balloons can also use the water they carry to drink as ballast.

"They can pour out water if they're worried about what's below," she says.

Over the course of the race, as the balloons lose hydrogen from the envelope, the sand or water is released in increments to help the balloons keep altitude.

"(We're) all ballast at the end of the day," Forden says.

Once the balloons launch, they catch air currents and begin their flight out of Albuquerque, reaching altitudes of 18,000 feet.

We're half above, half below the atmosphere, Forden says. "So many shooting stars."

"It's totally silent," he adds. "It makes gas ballooning unique. You can feel everything, see everything, smell everything."

In the Midwest, Forden says it can be hard to tell up from down, as stars and lights from the ground blend together.

"It's magical," he says.

"It's like camping in the sky," Cowlishaw continues.

While the gas balloon gondolas are not any bigger than a hot air balloon gondola, they have a flap toward the bottom that can fold down, allowing pilots to lay down and stretch out to sleep.

The pilots sleep in shifts, says Cowlishaw.

"It's like being a child at home being rocked to sleep," she says.

"I feel like I'm going to actually where I belong."