FME friends and balloon fanatics!
It is getting very exciting now, with under 72 hours of the contest remaining. So here’s a very brief post about the latest news…
Points
The top of the leaderboard is switching about on a regular basis now. Cloudchaser (296 pts) is currently top, heading eastwards over Canada with very little in their way (countries or airports). CommunityCats (294) had dropped down the order until… they arrived in North America. That’s 10 points for the continent and 5 points for the USA… sadly reduced by passing straight over an airport. But they are now 2nd.
SaskUAV (284) in 3rd also reached America, but is issuing commands obviously designed to avoid airports, and seems in a good position. If they reach the Canadian border without an airport hit… who knows?
Safe
SwanAbout just issued a command that took them straight into the path of at least 2 airports (Bellingham and Abbotsford). It’s not to pick up airports, in fact, if you know where those airports are, it will give you a clue! Yes, they are heading for the Safe office. They are dead on course now and just 95km away. That’s 4th closest so far, but I predict good things for them!
Distance
Distance leader GeaMetrics now has nearly a 1,000km lead over their nearest rival. It looks like that burst of high altitude flying yesterday worked well as they are now out in the Atlantic, off the coast of Washington DC. They’re hanging on (just) to the tail of a fast wind system. If they can keep it up, they’ll turn north very shortly and head off over the Atlantic back towards the UK. Could they do a full circumnavigation of the globe? We will find out in 3 days’ time!
Speed
Not much change in this table. The Shire Squad made a late burst for fame by climbing up to 8th in the table, but didn’t seriously challenge the leaders.
Airports
Airport overfliers Morphum GIS Wizards picked up KROW, KTUL, and KIRK airports (don’t ask me about KTUL. It’s still too painful) and you would expect them to be way clear, except…. Team Rocket has come out of nowhere to join them at the top of the table! They just made a magnificent manoeuvre to pick up 4 airports in very little time.

That had to be deliberate, right?! So Morphum has a challenger for their crown.
Countries
CloudConnector leads the table by 1 country, from Dirkdeballonvaarder, JJJM, and others.
Miscellaneous
We just got San Marino! I think the Vatican and Malta are the only 2 remaining European countries yet to be flown over.
We reached the southern hemisphere! Both Sean and Sky Sailor made it past the equator. Expect Andrée-expeditionen to join that list shortly (and I hope my balloon will too - I’m just trying to add Equatorial Guinea to our country list first).
Awesome work, everyone. Fly safe. Fly true.
Mark