Pilots, please be reminded to check for your license validation in case you are  flying an aircraft which is not D-registered and has a different registration than your passport!

Also: we must have missing call-signs by tuesday morning (0800 loc)! Pls check your individual pages, now!

The official map of the European Championship has been released.   More ...

Dear pilots, crews and ballooning-enthusiasts!

Welcome to the 15th FAI European Hot Air Balloon Championship in Magdeburg, Germany.

May I emphasize that, with 83 registered competitors from 24 different nations, we probably never had such a big European Championship for hot air balloons.

From my side I am very glad to be assisted by a great and experienced team (More..). Excuse to mention personally Claude Weber from Luxembourg as my assistant competition director, David Levin as our steward from the U.S. and Steve Ireland from Australia as our chief scorer.

Without our committed team of safety officer, weather forecaster, scorer, launch master and measurer, who all took their holidays to support this event, it is impossible to handle the workload which has to be done. Thank you today for working day and night during the event with only a very few hours to rest.

I also welcome our jury president Jakob Burkhard from Switzerland, the jury members Martine Besnainou from France and John Grubbstroem from Sweden.

I am confident that the 15th FAI European Hot Air Balloon Championship in Magdeburg will run within fine weather conditions above open landscapes with harvested fields.

Good luck to all competing teams!

Domink Haggeney
Competition Director

Rules as approved by the FAI/CIA-bureau are now available for download. More ...

Please note additionally:

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II. 10   RECALL PROCEDURE (10.15)

Sending short messages (SMS to the competitor's cell phones will be used as recall procedure. The competitors must therefore bring their own GSM mobile phone with a working SIM card. The number and phone will be tested at registration. Procedures will be explained at the general Briefing.

Comment: Each pilot may give his/her cell-phones for a possible recall procedure to his/her retrieve-crew.

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II. 17   DETAILS FOR THE USE OF GPS LOGGERS (6)

c) Logger Failure:
If a GPS logger supplied by the organizer fails to record a log, the GPS log recorded by the GPS of the competitor may be used as backup to provide positional information. This GPS should have a 12 channel parallel receiver and which provides a record of GPS altitude.

Strong recommendation: Each pilot should bring an appropriate GPS as back-up.

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One flying slot during the event may be used to rest and/or for scoring purposes.

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A printed rule book will not be handed out before the event. Each pilot is responsible to bring his/her personal rule-book. Only copies of section I and II will be available.