Over the weekend, a team around Dr. Killian Brennan, Postdoc in Cloud Dynamics, supported the Command Center of the SUI-2 gas ballooning pilots at the Gordon Bennett 2026 race.
Working day and night in close collaboration with our ETH partners Brennan’s team provided strategic support, meteorological analysis and trajectory evaluations to support the balloonists in navigating an ultimately rewarding outlier route over the Baltic Sea. All the other teams navigated further east through the Suwalki Gap.
For us Atmospheric Dynamicists, Gordon Bennett was an exciting opportunity to put our tools and Lagrangian thinking to work in a demanding real-world setting. Brennan and his colleagues from the ETH Atmospheric Dynamics Group could test the new tool “NETwork optimizer for BAllooning Trajectories, NETBAT”, a balloon flight path optimisation software developed by Brennan and evaluated based on previous Gordon Bennett races by Nina Fieldhouse during her internship at GIUB. The software uses open IFS ensemble data from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). In addition, outstanding meteorological support was given by NETBAT Forecasters Franco Lee (ETH), Martin Aregger (Uni Bern), Quentin Nicolas (ETH).
This year’s Gordon Bennett adventure was also a great reminder that achievements like this are only possible through close teamwork, bringing together different personalities, expertise, perspectives, and resources.
Huge congratulations to the courageous SUI-2 pilots Balthasar Wicki and René Erni, their Command Center and chasing crew for making this exciting and beautiful adventure possible.
Curious about the SUI-2 flight track and the race? Have a look at the map:
