SMOKE ON AT THE RED BULL AIR RACE
“A two thousand kilometre round trip for a five hour air race you say!!!??…….Ok, I’m in!”
Comparing the Paris Air Show to the Red Bull Air Race to liken The Horse of the Year Show to a rodeo! Not subtle but lots of fun.
This year’s itinerary has been, Budapest, Windsor (Ontario, Canada), San Diego, Abu Dhabi, Porto, with Barcelona still to come in October.
When my husband, Magne, mentioned it to me I initially thought that it was a race through all of these countries and all I had to do was look skyward and see them fly by! Silly me. We opted for the Porto leg of the race and decided to take the car as we had not yet driven at high speed through Portugal, hence my opening statement.
Our hotel in Porto – ‘Residencial Pão de Açucar’ (trans: ‘Sugarloaf Mountain’ – certainly not visible from our room!) is famous for its’ ‘art deco’ spiral staircase:
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The race is held over the River Douro which separates the two cities of Porto and Gaia, normally referred to as ‘Porto-Gaia’. The course winds its’ way between the bridges ‘Ponte Doña Maria’ (the famous iron railway bridge, completed in 1876. Designed by Gustave Eiffel before he built that little tower in Paris, it held the world record for the largest span for seven years. It remained in service until 1991 but today it stands as a national monument ), and:
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‘Ponte Dom Luis’ (Porto’s iconic bridge opened in 1886, when it held the record for the longest iron arch in the world. Today the metro crosses the upper level, while the lower level is used by cars and pedestrians to cross the river between the centre of Porto and the spectacular city views and port wine warehouses of the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia, where stand the cellars of the famous families that left their winemaking mark in the Douro region over the centuries: Taylor, Sandeman, Graham or Croft, to name but a few.
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Unlike the Paris Air Show, the R.B. Air Race is not a chiropractor’s dream as most of the events are held at eye level, only a few metres above the water, so no fear of spectator whiplash. The course is defined by a number of ‘Air Gates’ inflated to stand 20 metres (65 ft) high and secured to floating barges, which have stability anchors to maintain less than 15cm of sideways movement, quite a task given the strong river currents and winds on the Duoro. The pressure level is maintained with the use of powerful electrical, petrol-powered blowers that help keep the Air Gates steady even in windy conditions. They are strong enough to withstand high winds but also sufficiently delicate to be clipped by a plane travelling at speeds of 320+ km/h. and do no damage to the plane. Day One at Porto saw this happen as favourite ‘Hannes Arch’ of Austria clipped one of these pylons whilst performing an horizontal manoeuvre and it ripped like rice paper cut by a knife.
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Pilots are required to complete the 6.6 kilometre long track and fly between the Air Gates following a predetermined race track configuration. Failure to do this correctly results in penalty seconds being added to their race time. Penalty seconds can be added for an incorrect passing of an Air Gate, incorrect passing through the Chicane and for touching an Air Gate. For more serious breaches of the rules, such as accelerating so that there are over 12 Gs in the cockpit, pilots can also be disqualified as their planes require thorough servicing and repair after this happens.
Three different gate types require a specific manner of crossing. Blue gates must be crossed in level flight, red gates must be crossed in “knife-edge” or vertical flight, and slalom flying through the chicane gates (knife or level flying not mandatory), again, penalties are incurred for violations of the rules.
On learning this prior to our trip I was afraid it would be all a bit too ‘anoraky’ for me but by the time the second pilot had passed the finish line I was smitten and giving my own commentary on performance much to the amusement of Magne, who was more engrossed in the G-force (not over 12 Gs) and speed (not over 370 km/h) of the high-performance aerobatic planes. I must admit to falling under the spell of those daring pilots with names like ‘Kirby Chambliss’ (USA), ‘Nicolas Ivanoff’ (France) and ‘Yoshihide Muroya’ (Barnsley……er, Japan), but I really lost my heart to ‘Bernd Piff’ (Austria), the Race Director, whose deep Arnold Schwarzenegger-like accent started each pilot off with the term “smoke on!” indicating that a pilot is cleared to enter the flight box in order to start his race. I still have those words ringing in my ears two weeks on and intend having a tee shirt printed.
One of the interesting facts I gleaned from the commentary was that the famous silk scarf worn by WW1 pilots was not a dandification of their uniforms but actually had a practical application – in those days of no radar the pilot had to constantly be turning his head in all directions and the silk scarf was worn to stop the rough serge of the uniform chafing his neck – diddums!
The winner of the Porto leg was Brit ‘ Paul Bonhomme’ who stopped the clock in 1:09.23 on his final run through the course set up through 17 of the forementioned Air Gates, followed by other favourite ‘Hannes Arch’, and in third place rookie ‘Matt Hall’ of Australia. They are now wending their way to Barcelona to join the other pilots for the final race and showering of champagne of the ultimate winner.
The grandstand view from their planes must have been amusing as about 70% of the spectators were wearing bright yellow spongy caps advertising ‘SEAT’ cars, me being one of them!
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It must have looked like a sea of custard, not that they had much chance to survey their surroundings! We were, however, able to see them in the cockpit at the start and end of each race, thanks to a gigantic screen. The river bends around the middle of the course so we, the 720,000 strong crowd, could watch the ‘other-half’ of each flight this way.
The race was bookended by a small air show, you know the thing – dancing helicopters, eardrum busting jets of the Portuguese Air Force, a fly-past by a bi-plane and synchronised flying by some big noisy planes with coloured smoke. Hey, been there, seen that, done it at the Paris Air Show – I was there for the need for speed and derring-do not aeronautic ballet.
The worst noise of the afternoon, and I had a signed petition by at least 12 angry people for its’ ejection, was that of a three year old child in the stands with the voice of a foghorn using a foghorn to be heard! After several (not me for once) people aired their disapproval at not being able to hear the commentary a ‘pacifier’ was placed into its’ mouth and we could once again hear the throbbing engines of Paul Bonhomme’s Zivko Edge 540 – the plane of choice of all Red Bull Air Race Champions (thanks Wikipedia!).
Should you prefer a more concise version of the Air Race go to: www.redbullairrace.com
This was just one girl’s account of a surprisingly excellent day out – 2,000 k from home! We did have some stops along the way – Portimao (pretty), Evora (fascinating) and Albufeira (don’t bother!). Oh, and we didn’t even have a Red Bull!
SMOKE ON!
HEATHER VAN RIESEN
