zippyjuan
09-23-2007, 11:46 PM
This weekend was the Red Bull Air Races on San Diego Bay. The promised rain stayed away just perfectly and it was a beautiful weekend to be out. I was down on Friday to see what it was all about.
The planes made a rolling start (kind of hard to have a plane stay in one place until someone says "GO!"). "Smoke On" was the key phrase where they started adding parafin to the engine to create smoke which was supposed to help make the planes easier to track and also added visual drama. One problem was that once they went by the first time (basiclally two laps on the course that was set up) there was haze so photography was not easy.
The course was made of sixty foot high inflated pylons. Red pairs meant that the flyers were supposed to pass through vertically and blue ones were supposed to be passed horizontally without being over the tops of the cones. I saw two get chopped by planes going by too close. They were quickly replaced for the next race. There was also a slalom section. The race was against the clock- with each doing the course one at a time. Friday each got to make two runs with their best time determining the qualifying place. Sunday were quarter finals and finals.
It was truely an international event- pilots from the US, UK, Hungary, Spain, Austria, Nederlands, France, Russia, and Germany. Stages of the race were held in Abu Dhabi, Rio, Monument Valley Utah (there was a great photo from here in the program), Istanbul, Interlaken Switzerland (Alps in the background), London, Budapest, Portugal, San Diego, and the finale will be in Perth, Australia on Novermber 4th.
I found a video of one of the runs in Utah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUHMkGacFD8
I thought it was great and worth the sunburn I got. (in planning for the possiblity of rain, I forgot sunscreen!).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v243/JeffryZ/Red_Through_Gap.jpg
The planes made a rolling start (kind of hard to have a plane stay in one place until someone says "GO!"). "Smoke On" was the key phrase where they started adding parafin to the engine to create smoke which was supposed to help make the planes easier to track and also added visual drama. One problem was that once they went by the first time (basiclally two laps on the course that was set up) there was haze so photography was not easy.
The course was made of sixty foot high inflated pylons. Red pairs meant that the flyers were supposed to pass through vertically and blue ones were supposed to be passed horizontally without being over the tops of the cones. I saw two get chopped by planes going by too close. They were quickly replaced for the next race. There was also a slalom section. The race was against the clock- with each doing the course one at a time. Friday each got to make two runs with their best time determining the qualifying place. Sunday were quarter finals and finals.
It was truely an international event- pilots from the US, UK, Hungary, Spain, Austria, Nederlands, France, Russia, and Germany. Stages of the race were held in Abu Dhabi, Rio, Monument Valley Utah (there was a great photo from here in the program), Istanbul, Interlaken Switzerland (Alps in the background), London, Budapest, Portugal, San Diego, and the finale will be in Perth, Australia on Novermber 4th.
I found a video of one of the runs in Utah: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUHMkGacFD8
I thought it was great and worth the sunburn I got. (in planning for the possiblity of rain, I forgot sunscreen!).
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v243/JeffryZ/Red_Through_Gap.jpg