The champion

John Petrehn - 2006 World Hot Air Balloon Champion


2006 US World Championship Hot Air Balloon Team - Nick Donner, Joe Heartsill, John Petrehn, Paul Petrehn, Al Nels

The Awards Ceremony for the 2006 World Hot Air Balloon Championship took place on Sunday evening. It started out with Honda's Asimo robot walking out and giving the toast:


Then the awards for the 2006 World Honda Grand Prix were handed out. It was a podium sweep for the Americans, with Nick Donner's team taking 3rd, John Petrehn's team in 2nd, and Joe Heartsill's team winning:


Then, awards for the World Championship were presented. In addition to their FAI medals and certificates, each of the top 3 received lots of trophies and other prizes. Here's Joe Heartsill (2nd place) posing with his:

That's 3rd place Uwe Schneider of Germany to the right.

John then gave a very nice speech where he acknowledged Masashi Kakuda's impact on the event and ballooning as a whole. He indicated that the opportunity to fly with and against his brother Paul was the reason that he decided to compete in this event. He thanked his teammates, including Al Nels. And finally, he thanked his crew: Jen, Maury, Cheri, Mike, and Jason

Random cool things about Japan

Here in Japan, they have a lot of things figured out:

Car washes - The car stays in place, and the washer moves around it:


Vending machines - First, they're everywhere. In front of stores, on the side of the road, and in the middle of fields. And they come in groups; sometimes 2, sometimes 10. And finally, they all serve both cold AND hot drinks. Out of the same machine. Our favorite discovery was hot coffee in a can:

We're pretty sure that's hot creamed corn in a can next to the can labeled "American Coffee".

Bathrooms - The Japanese bathroom is the ultimate dichotomy. There's the "traditional-style" stall, which is basically a hole in the ground. In America, such a thing is relegated to outhouses, but here they're common in public facilities, and often found right next to more modern stalls. However if it isn't a hole in the ground, it's incredibly technology-enhanced. Even public restrooms have remote controlled toilets (including functions for water pressure, flushing, temperature of the seat, and bidets) and all the hotel bathrooms have mirrors that heat a section from behind so it doesn't steam up:

Hopefully this doesn't become common...

For you technical-competitor types, here's a copy of the task sheet from Saturday morning's flight that instituted the ascent/decent rate limits:
Flight 9 task sheet

Prize flight

Sunday morning was a separate prize flight. The task was a fly-in to a parking lot at the Twin Ring Motegi from individual launch sites. Paul took Joe with him:


They made a run on the target:


And a throw:


But in the end it wasn't good enough to be in the money. Nick made a nice run at it:

Several that followed were inside him.

We're spending the afternoon packing all the equipment up for shipping. The fan oil and gas needs to be drained, and the propane burned out of all the tanks. There's also a ton of electronics to put away.

Tonight at 7:00pm is the awards. I'll be sure to post some photos when I have them. It will be a big event for Team USA.

Tomorrow morning we'll leave for Narita bright and early. Balloons have to be dropped off at air cargo, vans returned to the rental company, and several (including Joe) will fly home. Erica, Paul, Shawn and I will spend the night in Narita (and possibly go into Tokyo for a few hours), the fly home at 3:45pm on Tuesday.

How good?

NOTE: FOR A FOLLOW UP ON THIS INFORMATION, PLEASE SEE THE POST ABOVE FROM 11/28/06

Paul Petrehn just completed his first World Championship event. Here's how his finish stacks up against the first attempts of some other prominent American pilots:

• Al Nels (1981) - 53rd
• Phil Glebe (1985) - 26th
• Joe Heartsill (1989) - 17th
• Johnny Petrehn (1993) - 26th
• Paul Petrehn (2006) - 11th
  

Information obtained from the FAI Ballooning Commission Category 1 Championship Events and Champions page: http://www.fai.org/ballooning/champs.asp#ax-world

FINAL RESULTS (thru task 28)

Here is final top 20 for the 2006 World Hot Air Balloon Championships:

1 PETREHN, John USA 21652
2 HEARTSILL, Joe USA 21251
3 SCHNEIDER, Uwe GER 20873
4 DONNER, Nick USA 20504
5 MIZUKAMI, Takao JPN 20377
6 ENDO, Mamoru JPN 19358
7 KOSTIUSKEVICIUS, Rimas LTU 18386
8 BOLZE, Stephane FRA 18364
9 FUJITA, Masahiko JPN 18292
10 MESSINES, Francois FR A17996
11 PETREHN, Paul USA 17717
12 BAREFORD, David GBR 17259
13 STURZLINGER, Gerald AUT 17094
14 WILLIAMS, Crispin GBR 17041
15 PIEPER, Markus GER 16671
16 KALOUSDIAN, Rubens BRA 16668
17 MASUMOTO, Yoshihiro JPN 16647
18 GIBBS, Paul AUS 16372
19 GOEHLER, Sven GER 16364
20 FILUS, Witold POL 16062

For complete results: http://www.balloon2006worlds.com/results/HABWC06index.html

The results are in - sort of

They've posted provisional results for the last 5 tasks - but have not totaled them into an overall. We did some quick calculations in Excel to do just that - but because they're provisional and because I'm not an expert in Excel, I'll stop short of posting them here.

You can do your own math at:
http://www.balloon2006worlds.com/results/HABWC06index.html

I will say that it does look good for Team USA - not perfect, but good.

We're off to a morning prize flight. Shawn is headed to Tokyo for the day with Al. The awards are tonight at 7:00pm (5:00am Michigan time), so I should have something posted shortly after you all get up tomorrow.