Josep flies Ecomagic “Aconcagua” balloon at Dolomite Balloon Festival.

Josep LLadó Costa recently returned from the Dolomite Balloon Festival in Dobbiaco Italy which he attended between 10th and 16th January 2010. He used this event to test out the duration of a new ECOMAGIC N-180 demonstrator “Aconcagua”.

Josep as managing director of Ultramagic is well known for his long distant mountain flights and still has the spirit of adventure which started over 30 years ago with his flights across Africa which he made with his friends who became partners in the business. One of these old time friends and one of the co owners of Ultramagic can be seen in the basket with Josep in one of the photographs of Dobbiaco - Joan Comellas.

Josep´s co-pilot at the festival was Uwe Schneider, one of the world´s top competition pilots having won the World and European championships on a number of occasions.

Josep reported that the weather out of Dobbiaco was quite good with light wind speeds which allowed low flights in the mountains, though he states it was still good to have such amazing endurance with the balloon in these conditions.

“Aconcagua” is a special hybrid Ultramagic ECOMAGIC balloon which combines the use of Aerofabrix insulated fabric in the top half of the envelope with Ultralast. Whilst not giving the full benefit of total Aerofabrix fabric it does represent a very practical and enduring option for a large balloon giving excellent fuel consumption and flight duration.

Using the latest Ultramagic FUELTEK fuel measuring instruments fitted to all of the cylinders on board it was possible to determine very accurately the fuel consumption of the exciting long distance mountain flights that were made. The results below speak for themselves.

For example Josep records that on flying the  “Aconcagua” N-180 with 4 persons and 6 cylinders of 30 Kg. on board plus high mountain equipment including oxygen, ELT, 2 transponders, etc. he used in 5:45 hours only 110 Kg (3,66 cylinders) of fuel. This included some climbs to 5000 m. This without doubt proved to be a good test for the next adventure.

The flight distances made were between 70 and 100 km to East at beginning the week and to the Southwest by the end of the week resulting in flying over “La Marmolada”. See the photographs and enjoy the experience.

The “Aconcagua” passed its test flights with flying colours and the balloon is now on its way to South America for its next adventure where Josep and Uwe plan to fly over the mountain in the Andes with the same name - Aconcagua - the highest mountain in the Americas. Watch this space!!