A gas balloon on an epic 45-hour flight from Germany to Scotland was spotted over Brightlingsea on Tuesday, March 18.
Piloted by two members of the Austria 2 Gas Balloon Team – Kolja Packard and Wuzi Wagner – the balloon took off from Bavaria on a test run for the Gordon Bennett endurance competition which takes place in France later this year.
Passing over the Black Forest and Belgium and France, the balloon left the French coast at Dunkirk and arrived over the Essex coast a short time later. It then flew over Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, before roughly following the A1 north until its final landing at the East Fortune Airfield in East Lothian.
The two-night flight was relatively short by the team’s standards, as it set a record of 100 hours and 14 minutes over Germany in 2024.
Pilotes Kolja Packard and Wuzi Wagner
