Ondrej Prochazka sets a new Esfera record in Mexico

Ondrej Prochazka set a new official FAI Esfera record launching from a hot-air balloon in Mexico in January 2016. He performed 9 consecutive Esferas. Later on we met up in Valle de Bravo, Mexico during the PWC Superfinal, so I threw a few questions at him.

justACRO: First of all, how did you get the idea to attempt a record in Esferas?
Ondrej: To be honest I didn’t plan anything before going to Mexico. At one moment I was even thinking to take only cross-country hike&fly equipment, because I am getting tired of traveling with the heavy acro kit.
Then I spoke about my trip with Veso and he told me I must take the acro gear as there are some great dynamic flying spots and also he introduced me to Fabul, who is operating a hot air balloon company in Monterrey. Fabul was super kind from the first moment and invited me to hang around and jump from his balloon. I was thinking how to help him out in return and make a bit of publicity for his company. Eventually I came up with the idea to attempt a record.

J.A.: Why Esfera?
O.: I had a limited attitude and also Horacio’s Infinity record is a tough one to beat with a lot of suffering to be
undertaken...Secondly the other tricks like twisters or trippies are probably not so interesting from the spectators’ point of view. I made a rough calculation to see how many Esferas would fit in the available altitude and it seemed possible to beat the previous record of 6 repetitions.

J.A.: Do you do this trick a lot?
O.: At one point when I started learning it I did many, especially to understand the influence of different weight-shifting in the Anti-Rhythmic phase and also to practice the left rhythmic. Now I don’t fly the Esfera much, because I think this trick makes the wing suffer a lot and it eats a lot of altitude. Two years back I tried to link together 2-3 esferas a few times and I was surprised how physical it was. Last year I tried 5 in Colombia starting from cloudbase at about 4000 meters and that also took a lot of juice out of me, probably it is still the current foot-launch record.

J.A.: In the end you managed 9 Esferas, how did it gol?
O.: I was always wondering where the limits to all this are, but I didn’t expect to have problems during the record attempt. In reality it was much different and I felt very tired after the 7th Esfera – was very tiring for my neck and I felt out of power during pulling the Rhythmic SAT. What kept me going after the seventh one was that I thought I made just 5, as I didn’t really count during the run. So with a lot of determination I battled to do at least two more to get the record. I landed thinking I made 7 and got to know I made 9 just after looking at the footage.

J.A.: Nice, congrats again!
O.: Thanks a lot. Greetings to all the readers and don’t forget to checkout the short-film from the record attempt.

Watch the Esfera record video clip here





Latest Comments

acro_guru's picture

Thanks Yarich !!!

Yarich's picture

hi. Looks like windyty.com. Cleack on spot, than detailed forecast, than airgram.

acro_guru's picture

Wow Ondrej !!! Congratulations to you and your team. Can anyone tell what is the software (or any similar software) that we get to see in this video around 1min34sec to 1min43sec ?, thanks.

Yarich's picture

Congrats Ondrej!!! Video is awesome!!! thanks!