Wilhelm Eimers

Wilhelm Eimers (born February 3, 1950 in Duisburg ) is a German gas balloonist .

Sporting successes

With the acquisition of the private pilot license (PPL-D) in the 1970s, Eimers took off on over 1000 trips with the gas balloon . He completed around 1,300 trips in a hot air balloon . In 1994, Eimers was the first person to travel in a balloon from Germany across the Canal to Great Britain, only to land in Ireland later. Eimers failed twice in the countless performance drives from German starting places to all of Europe. In 1986 he hit the Biscaya with the balloon D-Der Essener when a crossing to Spain was not possible due to the wind. After a difficult recovery, Eimers and his copilot Ricken were safely brought to the mainland.

With the gas balloon, which is regarded as an aircraft , Eimers achieved four-fold victory in the Gordon Bennett Cup in 1995, 1996, 2000 with his co-pilot Bernd Landsmann and in 2014 with his co-pilot Matthias Zenge. He also won eight runner-up titles at the Gordon Bennett Cup (1992, 1993, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2010, 2013) and multiple victories at the German decentralized performance competition (most recently in 2013) for gas balloons.

Furthermore, Eimers has participated in the American championships nine times since 1998, most recently in 2017 with his son Sebastian Eimers, which he finished three times as runner-up (most recently in 2012). In 1995 Eimers and his copilot Bernd Landsmann drove a gas balloon from Wil in Switzerland to Riga in Latvia and landed there after 92:11 h. The old world record was exceeded by 22 hours. In the second smallest gas balloon class (250 m³) he set another permanent world record in May 2011 with 23:18 hours. He also holds another seven German gas balloon records in different size classes and disciplines, including a. Duration, distance and height records.

In 2006, under the chairmanship of Eimers, after almost 20 years of planning, a new performance center for gas balloons was opened in Gladbeck .

Awards

• 1993: Diplôme de Montgolfier , the highest award in international sports aviation
• 2007: Sports badge of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia , awarded by the North Rhine-Westphalia Minister of the Interior Ingo Wolf
• 2014: Sportsman of the year in the German Aero Club eV for winning the gas balloon world championship
• 2017: Plaque of honor of the city of Gladbeck. for the implementation of the gas balloon world championship, which took place in September 2016 in Gladbeck.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Coupe Aéronautique Gordon Bennett ( Memento of July 26, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), website of the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale with results and winners of previous competitions.
2. ↑ Record list (PDF; 33 kB) of the German Free Ballon Sports Association, accessed on September 10, 2019.
3. ^ Message on the award of the sports badge (PDF, 28K) ( Memento from October 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the State Sports Association of North Rhine-Westphalia