We are in Annonay, the village of the Montgolfier brothers, on September 15, 1979, 196 years after their first ascent. This is the Champagne Mercier challenge. Distance competition, alone on board; Free departures for 24 hours. My recovery team is made up of Jacques Van Ginderdeuren, Brigitte, Yves and Christian d’Oultremont.
This morning, the weather is not at its best, overcast skies, north wind, 10 knots. After the briefing, the drivers are disappointed. At 9:10 am, I decide to fly first. Being alone on board, I take 6 cylinders in the basket of the OO-ARK (Royal Aero-Club of Belgium, 1600 m3), a 40m rope, a map of the region, my compass, a radio, toilet paper to see the direction of the wind between the ground and the basket, a bottle of water and biscuits, not to mention my helmet mandatory in France I am told.
The heavily loaded balloon rises very slowly after circling in this grey sky. Ten minutes later, I see the Champagne Mercier balloon in the sky; He will follow me for an hour and then land. Its pilot will tell me later:
I lost sight of you, there was no one behind me. Believing myself to be alone in the air in this mess, I landed down as soon as possible
Pilot of the Champagne Mercier balloon
For my part, I am west of the Rhône, passing high peaks with difficulty. I will give a lot to lose a few kilos, or to fly over a beautiful plain. Towards Valencia, I am at 3000 meters, but hardly move forward, so I go down to 100m. The opportunity to have my first and last radio contact with the recycling. The sky is blue now, it’s even starting to get hot. The balloon accelerates, the Mistral even pushes me to 60 or 80 km/h (according to witnesses who followed me in the car and met after I landed.) It’s exhilarating. Suddenly, my vario indicates a rapid ascent while I am heating normally. I throw a piece of toilet paper which, to my surprise, rises and passes over the ball. I nevertheless heat up so as not to fall like a stone at the exit of this pump. I go from 900 feet to 2900 feet in a few seconds. The temperature of the flask indicates 80°; normal! We finally stabilize before entering a new zone of turbulence, I am pushed brutally to the left, then to the right, the envelope receives like a gigantic punch of wind and deflates by a quarter. Let us heat up, let us heat up to compensate for this loss. I stabilize at 60 m from the ground, the brave ‘Aero-Club’ Princess Alix resumes a normal speed. When I reach Montélimar, I notice that my map does not go any further. Let’s continue on sight. In fact, it’s not bad; No more maps to consult is one less thing to worry about. Hold a superb Roman bridge, I recognize it from having seen it in my schoolbooks; it is the famous Pont du Gard. The balloon that is not interested in it continues its flight, perhaps in a hurry to see the Mediterranean!
I learned a few weeks later that if we had taken the necessary steps for the homologation, the Princess Alix (OO-ARK) would have easily beaten the Belgian record…
The fast flight continues until I start looking for a place to land. I can only see the marshy plains of the Camargue and a few vineyards. Not very welcoming all that. Let’s think: The Camargue, then the beach, then the Mediterranean, then Africa, … Stop dreaming, René-Michel, you’ve just plugged your last gas tank into the 6 on board. No choice, you have to settle down. I fly low and finally find a field on my axis just behind a young vineyard. But there is a high-voltage line in my path. I go upstairs, pushed by a Mistral that is still wide awake. Once the line is crossed, let’s open the parachute. How badly he lives up to his name! The ground literally jumps to the gondola. We avoid the last vineyard stake. Fortunately because if I had touched this stake, the whole row of vines would have fallen down, since they are all connected to each other by a thread. The basket bounces once. Everything that was free in the basket is ejected. Dragged on the ground for 75m., it is kilos of earth, pebbles and… potatoes rush with ardour on and around me. We finally stop, I’m still hanging from the rope of the parachute. The contact with the ground was rough, but no harm and thank you my helmet! Spectators who have rushed to the scene will say in their wonderful accents: What a cloud of dust. A real atomic bomb… « I am told that I am at Manduel. It is 1:20 p.m. So I covered a little less than 200 km in 4 hours and 10 minutes. Not bad.
I learned a few weeks later that if we had taken the necessary steps for the homologation, the Princess Alix (OO-ARK) would have easily beaten the Belgian record which was, at the time, 140 km for a 1600 m3 balloon. (To be checked). Back in Annonay, we learned that during this competition 4 hot air balloons were ‘destroyed’ and many others suffered lighter material damage. OO-ARK and I were unharmed; the chance of an impetuous and sometimes unconscious youth.
René-Michel de Looz
