Gas Ballooning at the Gladbeck balloon club in Germany  with Wilhelm Eihmers.   by Tom Mackie         

 On April 16h, a group of three from Miami made the treck to the Gladbeck Balloon Club outside of Duisburg and to the home of Wilhelm Eihmers to make several Gas balloon flights.  My name is Tom Mackie and I happen to be one of the balloonists from Florida.  As well as being a pilot for Northwest Airlines, I am also married to a Dutch Gal and have a brother in law who lives in Amsterdam which makes this entire trip very convenient. 

Flying Gas balloons in America is very expensive due to the extremely high price of Helium and even Hydrogen.  It also requires quite a bit of planning in order to even arrange for a gas truck just for inflation.  In Germany, even with the high euro/ USD ratio, it is much more affordable for us to make gas balloon flights.  The fact that it is possible to just walk out of the door of the balloon club and hook up a hose to a hydrogen pipeline and inflate makes gas ballooning in Germany very attractive.

On top of that place the experiences of Wilhelm Eihmers and you have the makings of a perfect expedition.   Wilhelm is not only an excellent Gas Balloonist with years of experience, but also a wonderful host who made our stay at the Gladbeck balloon club even more enjoyable.  Along with his Wife Claudia and his sons, they really helped make for an excellent trip.

We were very fortunate to have perfect weather for our entire stay in Germany.  We made a total of Five Flights most in the 6-10 hour range.

We arrived in Amsterdam on the morning of the 17^th and met up with my brother in law, Bram van Heel, in Amsterdam.  Although Bram in not a balloonist, he is always up for some adventure and decided to join us for the first flight. We called Wilhelm in Duisburg who said let’s make a flight the next morning.  So instead of spending the day in Amsterdam as previously planned, we went straight for Germany in order to take advantage of the good weather.   When we arrived in Duisburg and met with Wilhelm, he suggested that we stay in the new Gladbeck balloon club as we would be right there on the launch field.  This turned out to be one of the nicest arrangements of the entire trip.  It was wonderful to just wake up, make a cup of coffee and walk 5 Meters to the launch site every day.   The Club has an upstairs with two rooms that have four beds in each.  Downstairs there is a WC, Shower and a wonderful Bar made from a Gas balloon basket.  There is also a computer to check Weather.  And to top it all off there is an excellent restaurant and beer garden just a short 100 meters walk through the woods.

Flight 1:  We prepared sandbags and placed them by our launch spot.  Then we grabbed a few hours of sleep.  At 0345, Wilhelm arrived from his house and we started inflating.  It did not take very long at all as the pressure in the hydrogen line was very strong and all of the ballast bags had been prepared.   Wilhelm, on occasion, makes a call to the Hydrogen Company to tell them to turn up the pressure.  It can make quite a bit of difference in inflation times.

Once inflation was complete, we departed at 0429 and climbed to 400 meters which kept us safely above any power lines or towers.  Our Drift track was about 170 degrees for most of the flight.  We flew for 6 hours and 27 minutes for a total distance of 167 km.  We did not make any approaches on this flight, but opted for a scenic view of the German Country side and flew over many castles along the Rein River.  Now, it was about 10:00 and the winds were picking up.  We were directly over the river north of Mainz.  As we were descending our landing options were getting rather short.  Basically, we had a small, downward sloping field on top of a cliff that overlooked the river.  At this point, we were moving at about 15 knots.  We vented and dropped the drag line and were descending fairly rapidly. We used three bags of sand to slow our descent just before making a picture perfect landing on top of the hill that overlooked the river. This had to be the most picturesque landing spot that I have ever made .After a bottle of champagne and a two hour nap in the field, our ground crew found us and we were on our way back to Gladbeck.

Flight 2: That evening, Wilhelm told us that several Belgians we coming for a one day flight.  He had room for one more and we opted to place my friend Dave Allen, Who is also a Northwest Pilot in the basket.  This would be Dave’s Second flight and we wanted to make sure that he had his two flights in order to have his Hot Air Balloon restriction removed.  In the US, one must make two flights in a Gas Balloon, greater than two hours in duration in order to have the balloon with a Heater only restriction removed.  Since, I had already had my “Gas Rating.” We wanted to make sure that Dave got his before any unfavorable weather might have rolled in.  Fortunately, we had perfect weather the entire time.

So the next day, we helped inflate and Wilhelm, Dave and the Belgians took off for a 3-4 hour flight that tracked northeast. 

Flight 3: That afternoon we prepared sand bags for the flight the following morning.  At 0637, we took off and flew South Passing Directly over Duessdorf  and Koln Airports.  We were constantly talking to ATC and they were very kindly directing traffic below us.  We were taking photos of Airlines and they were taking photos of us.  We exchanged email addresses over the radio so that we could send the pictures that we took of each other.  I know that the passengers of the airlines had excellent views of us with the Sun rising as we drifted over the Rein.  The German Air Traffic controllers were very accommodating and I could tell that they were used to having gas balloons in their airspace. 

We made several approaches into the open coal mines.  It was very surreal flying over these huge open pit mines as it must have felt like what Apollo 11 Astronauts experienced as they were drifting over the black moonscape.   The wind started picking up and I made an approach to a small field on the opposite side of a road.  I had to wait until we were clear of the road in order to drop the drag line so that we would not be an obstacle to a truck that was heading our way.  I had a fairly steep approach angle and we again had to use about three bags of ballast to slow our descent.

Flight 4: That Afternoon, after our post flight lunch of Bratwurst and Saur Kraut, we again prepared more sand bags for what was to be our long flight.  .  Wilhelm, who had only been getting a little sleep in the back of the chase vehicle, had an annual balloon club meeting at the Gladbeck that evening.  It was nice to meet Walter Muller, the author of Gone with the Wind.  (An excellent” how to” manual for gas balloonists)He gave a talk, albeit in German, on the new material that Woner Balloons is planning on using.  We got a chance to talk with him in person before the meeting and got a short English version of his talk that he was giving the club.  While the meeting went on, we were upstairs getting a cherished 2-3 hours of sleep before the long flight.  After the meeting, we started inflating.  Several of the Balloonists who were present for the meeting stuck around to help us inflate.  We took off at 00:10 am and flew for several hours at around 600 meters tracking due west towards The Netherlands.  We then climbed to 2000+ meters and made a course reversal and tracked South East passing over Düsseldorf f Airport again and North of Koln.   It was fairly cold in the basket and even with blankets and warm jackets we got to experience what the Gordon Bennet Pilots go through on a nightly passage.  Wilhelm had the perfect “must have” piece of clothing: A snowmobile suit.  He offered me the extra pair of “moon boots” that really kept the old feet warm.  At one point during the flight we heard what we thought was a jet aircraft passing by, but to realize it was a porche “flying” at over what must have been 250 km per hour on the ground.  We descended for a landing at 10:47.  The wind was too calm and we just hovered over some power lines for awhile then finally drifted off to a nice field and landed.  The flight was over 10 hours 37 minutes, but we only covered 110km due to the light winds.

Flight 5: The Following day we made a flight that was strictly planned for approaches.   Our goal was just to make a short flight and get as many landings in as we could.  Wilhelm called the club and has us inflate the balloon and when he arrived we took off for one of the best flights of the trip.   I soon learned that it is important to have sand bags ready at all times especially on takeoff.  As we climbed out over the dark Duisburg sky we entered a temperature inversion at only 250 meters and started a healthy descent at which time I was scooping sand out of the hopper at a fast rate.  That is when Wilhelm chimed in.  He told me to forget scooping and start dumping.  I did not realized that I would have to dump a bag and a half of sand so soon after our departure to keep the climb going.  We then got a very scenic view of the sunrise over the German country side and saw herds of deer and wild pigs.  We would sneak right up on them before the realized we were there.  To their shock, they had trouble deciding as to which way to run.  We made many approaches to fields.  First pull a little on the valve line while listening to the hiss of the escaping gas.  Making sure not to pull too much and get the “flutter” which immediately places you into a 3-5 sand bag descent. (Note: For gas balloon novice’s, Worner has a tie off on the valve that makes it more difficult to over vent which we did not use)  After making several approaches we entered into The Netherlands near Enschede. We also gave our non balloonist friend from Miami, Scott Dennis, a chance at make a few approaches.  He ended up make a nice approach to a field with very little coaching.  We did not need to look at the GPS to know that we were over Holland.  We could tell by all of the people on bicycles along the roadways.  We then flew over several football fields that were crowded with players.  This time Dave was making the final approach and was planning on landing beyond a set of trees.  Well, that approach was the only approach that did not go 100% as planned.  He over vented and we ended up in the top of the trees.  After dropping several bags of sand we climbed back out and landed in a very nice, green Dutch field.

On arriving back at the Gladbeck balloon club, Wilhelm’s wife Claudia prepared a real German party for us.  Grilled Bratwurst, Sauerkraut and followed by a raspberry soufflé.  Not to mention some choice German beer.

What really made this trip so special was the hospitality that Wilhelm and his family bestowed upon us.  They were the perfect hosts! 

Also, Wilhelm is an excellent instructor.  He is very patient and knows when and when not to instruct.  He allows the pilot to make the small corrections necessary without too much intervention.  Learning to fly gas balloon is fairly simple for a hot air balloonist, but it does require learning the “feel” of flying an approach using ballast to climb instead of a burner.  There are a few things that actually make it seem easier like using the drag line for landing.  It is very effective in helping to slow not only the descent rate, but also the ground speed.

The following Day we drove south to Switzerland and to Augsburg, Germany.  We visited theWorner  balloon factory  in Augsburg where we got to see several balloons being pieced together.  Then we went to Balloon Museum just a few kilometers away.  The museum had some very interesting items and was mostly dedicated to gas ballooning.  Then it was across the street for more beer and Bratwurst…..