Red Bull Air
Race World Championship
IMG
Beyond Home
Entertainment
Web: http://www.redbullairrace.com
When I was in my teens, about a hundred
years ago, I used to enjoy watching Pylon Racing on TV. This involved intrepid (or insane) pilots in
ex-World War 2 fighter planes flying very quickly over the Arizona desert
around a course a few miles long, round a steel mast at each end. The races
were incredibly fast and dangerous, run at altitudes low enough to part the
hair of the coyotes, and the slightest error meant explosive flaming death. The
Red Bull race is the modern equivalent.
The planes are no longer fighters, but
their ancestry is obvious. The sleek lines, the massive power from the engines,
the incredible maneuverability – these are still the same. The names have
changed. Instead of Mustangs, Thunderbolts and Corsairs we now have specialty
aircraft like MXS and Edge.
The course is no longer an oval track, but
a series of gates and chicanes through which a pilot must complete three laps.
At the end of each lap he must pull the aircraft up and over, then roll out 180
degrees and repeat the lap in the other direction. During this “half-cuban” as
it is called, the pilots and aircraft can regularly pull over 9 G’s. This is
incredibly stressful on the plane and pilot. The races rarely exceed 90 seconds
for the three laps, requiring speeds around 370 KMH, and it is incredible
watching the pilots flip their aircraft from wingtip to wingtip to navigate the
gates at these speeds. No WW2 fighter was ever as agile as this. The pylons are
now huge inflatable fabric towers, which is just as well since contact with
them is common. This earns the pilot a 10-second penalty, enough to take them
out of the race. Penalties also apply for entering the chicanes too low or too
high. The races are held over water at different venues around the world, and
crowds of 750,000 are common.
The doco contains many in-aircraft shots
and the stress on the pilots is obvious. There are also many
through-the-windshield shots as the planes negotiate the course and these give
a far better idea of the speed and agility of the aircraft. The pilots readily
give interviews and although they are highly competitive in flight, in their interviews
they readily give credit to their opponents for a good round.
The film is a good watch for excitement,
thrills, and speed – it is after all the world’s fastest motor sport. Enjoy it.
This review will appear in Volume 2 No.2
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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