Where will they go?
Post date: Sep 10, 2016 3:15:20 AM
The Gordon Bennett Competition is a distance "race". Simple the team that flies the farthest, as measured using the Great Circle Distance*, is the winner. In Europe however, there are some restrictions. Certain countries do not allow balloons to fly over or land in their country. Check out this map of what countries are friendly toward the fliers, and which ones are closed to balloons.
The launch is from Germany, meaning that if the balloons head due East the distance will be reduced. A flight direction to the North-North-East, or SouthEast might provide longer distances, but they present their own challenges. With the number of entries in the event, 24, there will probably be a number of strategies. You'll be able to watch it all unfold online once the flights begin. We plan to provide a link to the live tracker, and regular updates on the flight of the Foxtrot Charlie team as the flight progresses.*The great-circle distance or orthodromic distance is the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere, measured along the surface of the sphere (as opposed to a straight line through the sphere's interior). Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great-circle_distance