TEAM Gossard have made history by retaining the British National Championship for the third year in a row on home territory!

Taking place in Exclusive Ballooning’s home town of Berkeley, South Gloucestershire, competition flights were scheduled morning and evening from Tuesday 19 through to Saturday 23 morning.

With multiple launch sites arranged locally to cover all wind directions, a briefing is held just prior to each flight where the Competitions Director announces a number of tasks that each pilot must complete.

These range from using the winds at different altitudes to fly to set target locations across the countryside and 3D scoring areas at different altitudes which pilots must fly through at different points using gps trackers to measure accuracy!

The Gossard balloon is a dedicated racing balloon built by manufacturer Kubicek Balloons and operated by Berkeley based aerial marketing specialist Exclusive Ballooning.

Standing 90 ft tall, it is fully digitally printed with Gossard model Elle Liberachi in her Super EgoBoost bra and never fails to capture people’s attention on the ground or social media.

Team Gossard had just returned from the world championships in Brazil and had a great week, winning five of the fifteen tasks overall and winning by a large margin..

Team Gossard pilot Andrew Holly said ‘To win the Nationals is a massive achievement but to win three times consecutively is a very proud moment. We have to thank Gossard for all of their support over the years and also to my team who are the very best in the world. Just days before the event, my regular crew chief fell ill and it looked like we may have to withdraw. Company operations manager Louise Jones stepped up and took the role without any prior competition knowledge. This also makes our victory that much more remarkable, it was a true team effort.’

Only one pilot has previously won the title three years in a row, but Andrew is the first pilot to ever retain the Championship three years in a row from his first initial win.

No pilot has ever won the title a fourth time consecutively so until next year!