Tourist hot-air balloon The Racer

competition0 - 5 Pers.with basket

In 1996 Ultramagic made a giant step forward in the world of competition ballooning. The Racer was born. This was the first time that a balloon had been designed, developed and produced especially for the demanding requirements of balloon competition. It was designed in close collaboration with Uwe Schneider a world top class competitor. The goal was to produce a balloon with such a shape so as to perform the maximum rate of ascent and descent whilst avoiding deformation of the envelope, thereby improving the precision on approaching the target. The shape still had to be pleasing to the eye and look like a beautiful balloon. Safety was also an important factor in the design equation with clear windows and Ultralast fabric on the top of the balloon being part of the standard specification. The final design and shape was the result of considerable painstaking development work with a great deal of testing and then analysing precise flight data. Many test hours were logged both by Uwe Schneider as well as Josep and Carles Llado Costa who all fly competition with a passion The result of all this development work was that the goal requirements were achieved with tremendous success. Consequently The Racer is now recognised by most of the worlds top competition pilots as the only balloon to compete. Also its pleasant shape became an instant success with balloon sponsors. The Racer has been produced so far in 3 sizes to suit all pilot and competition task requirements. “I flew the most slimline, because in my experiments I found out, that not the shape nor the diameter of the envelope have a big influence on the climb and decend rate of a balloon but the height of the envelope.