19th FAI World Hot Air Balloon Championship about to start

The 19th FAI World Hot Air Balloon Championship will take place in Debrecen, Hungary from 2nd to 10th October 2010.

This will be the largest World Championship event ever to be held. 123 Competitors from 5 continents and 33 countries will compete for top honours in this prestigious event.
After their recent successes, France will have the most competitors – 8 pilots followed by Japan who will field 7 pilots. This year, for the first time, pilots from Serbia will be participating. The main competition event will be accompanied by a Fiesta event. The 2010 World Championships will be directed by well known director, Mathijs de Bruijn assisted by an experienced team of officials.

Event Web site
www.2010worldballoons.com

Competitors
In the website you can browse the list of competitors.

Schedule
The event was preceded by two days of official practice flying on 28th and 29th September. Pilots can register from 30th September to 2nd October, when practice flying continues.

The event itself gets underway with an opening ceremony and lunch on Saturday 2nd October followed by an evening nightglow in the centre of the town. Sunday is the day for the general briefing and another nightglow.

The competition starts in earnest on Monday 3rd with the first competition flight in the morning and the last competition flight on the morning of Saturday 9th. The whole event winds up with the awards lunch on Sunday 10th.