"Cleared into the tracks, smoke on"
With a bit of luck and organizing I managed to
stop by London this weekend to attend the first
time ever Red Bull Air Race arranged in London.
This is the Formula One of the aviation world and
is touring the world with a total of ten races a
year.
The organizer admitted that it was harder than
expected to arrange the race along The Thames right
next to London City Airport. But with some goodwill
they managed to close down the river and built a
temporary runway next to London City Airport from
where the launched the airplanes.
The weather forecast was looking increasingly worrying
with large amounts of precipitation which has been
a huge problem in Southern England this summer.
Amazingly enough the weather gods must be aviation
enthusiasts, because he weather could not have been
better for an air race. Generally light winds, over
20 degrees and just enough clouds to keep the temperature
perfect.
I am scheduled to fly out of Cardiff the coming
week, so I got the brilliant idea to stop by London
on the way down. I arrived in London on Saturday
and met some friends including John and Jennifer
from NAIA who also came to the race on Sunday.
The race lasted for 5 hours, and started off with
the 12 pilots who had survived the qualifying round
on Saturday. The track starts with the pilot building
up speed to almost 400 km/h (250 mph / 215kts) before
he maneuvers his way through a number of pylons
which must be passed depending on the color either
vertical, horizontal or as slalom. The last pylon
along the track includes a 270 degree turn where
the pilot pull up to 9 Gs before he fly the reverse
track. When he reach the finish line, he does half
a cuban 8 and does one more round in the track.
After finishing the finishline after two rounds
he is finished.
After round one there where 8 pilots left for the
quarter and semi finals where the fastest pilots
flew against the slowest pilots (only one plane
in the track at once). The commentators was expecting
times down to 1:30, but towards the end we saw some
impressive flying with times below 1:25.
The winner was the American Top Gun Ace Mike
Mangold who is number two in the World Series.
Runner up was the home favourite Paul
Bonhomme who leads the series by one point.
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