LONGVIEW, Texas — Almost 90 hot air balloon pilots from as far away as the East and West Coasts will take part in competitions beginning Monday in Longview.
Dan Droege, chair of 46th annual Great Texas Balloon Race, said 89 pilots will compete in the U.S. Nationals Hot Air Balloon Championship, the GTBR and Young Guns Championship. Those include 53 U.S. Nationals pilots, 14 GTBR pilots, 12 Young Guns pilots, four special shape balloon pilots and six remote control balloon pilots.
Marc Blaser, a pilot from Switzerland, is set to make an appearance to see how competitions are run here, Droege said. Blaser will not compete in the U.S. Nationals but is set to fly at some point during his stay, Droege added.
Pilots qualify by participating in competitions throughout the year and are narrowed down to the top 50 in the country by the Balloon Federation of America.
Starting Monday on the first day of competition for the U.S. Nationals, pilots will compete in tasks to accumulate points that are tallied, Droege said. Each task and flight is weather permitting and is determined each morning at a pilot briefing. Wind speed, altitude and other factors are considered when determining if it's safe to fly, he said.
If pilots are given the green light, they'll take to their vehicles and be off to find a spot to set up and take off from.
Possible tasks the pilots will be asked to undertake often include getting a bean bag as close as possible to a target on the ground. One task might allow pilots to throw the beanbag from a balloon while another might be a gravity drop, in which pilots have to be even closer to the target and must drop the beanbag instead of throwing it.
Another task might give GPS coordinates to pilots to aim for and fly through, which they calculate with GPS loggers, Droege said.
While U.S. Nationals pilots will compete Monday through June 18, GTBR and Young Guns pilots compete June 16 to 18.
At the end of the competitions June 18, points are tallied for each competition, and winners are announced.
Droege said $100,000 in prize money is set to be given out across the races, and amounts vary based on how each pilot placed. Regardless of if a pilot places first, second, third or last, they will leave with some amount of prize money, he added.
First place also comes with a cowboy hat, an engraved belt buckle, a pistol, a bottle of champagne, a trophy and, of course, prize money.
Pilots also will have a chance to take home cash from the Ducks on a Pond task. This task is separate from the competition and will not accrue points, Droege said.
"We will have a 6-foot kiddie pond located out somewhere, and each pilot will have a little rubber ducky they throw," he said. "It has to stay inside the pool. The first person who gets it that day gets $500. The rest of the people that get it in there will split the rest of the $4,500 evenly."
For more information and a full schedule of events, visit gtbr.net.