Photo TR: Red Bull Air Race, Detroit/Windsor 5/31-6/1

[dandaman]

*Note: This page contains the report from the 2008 Red Bull Air Races in Detroit/Windsor. For the 2009 update, see page 2. Do it. You know you want to.

 

So this TR pretty much embodies a healthy mix of schoolwork, work-work and procrastination on the little free time between the two. In any case...

 

The May 31st weekend saw the Red Bull Air Race take to the skies over the Detroit River, straddling the U.S. - Canaba border. This was a pretty big thing for both border cities (Detroit and Windsor), not only for spectacle but for temporary economic boost; being the auto capitals of their respective countries, in recent times one can understand how badly they needed the injection. Oh, and there were a few fun things before the actual events as well.

 

I understand also that the Air Races are heading off to Jolly-Jolly-Jollyland for the first few days of August, so those Brits who want to get in on the action, tix available at http://www.redbullairrace.com.

 

First, so I can post the (short, I assure you) videos here then upload the photos to the server, here's the in-flight entertainment before the time trials/qualifying on the first day.

 

The first few are some acrobatics, courtesy of the Canadian Harvards...

 

 

 

 

Unfortunately this is the second go-around for the F-18 (16?) screaming down the River... the first time, when I didn't have the camera out, it broke Mach 1 and visibly shook all the city windows.

 

 

Finally, ye olde Navy plane that was in service during WWII:

 

 

So "quality" videos aside, here comes the pics. I should have the second day up shortly, though that depends on if Photobucket wants to co-operate and upload my videos faster than a turtle with arthritis.

"Ladies and gentlemen, due to high winds, tonight's performance has been cancelled. Check back with the moose out front tomorrow for more information." Too bad you didn't tell us before 4 p.m.!

 

The moose out front says the TR will continue momentarily. (See: possibly tomorrow.)

Pictured: TPR members. Not pictured: Voyage.

The Red Bull doomsday plane rolled in after they got the pylon situation sorted out, and they had some skydiver entertainment of which I have no photos.

"Good work, men. Now let's all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes."

"Call in the fleet! Corral this bastard before it threatens our well-being and entertainment!"

"...Johnson, you idiot! Running over the damned thing to trap it did NOTHING!"

 

"Sir, my name is Jackson."

 

"The hell it is!"

"Freedom? In the United States? Not on my watch! Prepare to ram!"

Be free, massive inflatable pylon!

So today happened to be really windy... windy enough to send one of the "air gates" the racers fly through down the river.

I think I have more video of this one tomorrow... quite impressive considering its age.

If I could describe it in one word, it would be, *KABOOM*. (Asterisks now count as letters on the Interweb.)

Surprised they got the permission to fly everything they did over a United States border... if they could, customs would probably try to make them declare crap every time they crossed sides!

It's like Pearl Harbor with more yellow planes and less explosions or Affleck.

"They're not Immelmans, they're half-Cuban-8's! Geez, get it right."

Somewhere, Derek just came.

In come the Harvard(s)!

About as best as my $150 Powershot can muster on zoom...

Finally around 2:00, the entertainment arrived. Can't remember who this first "act" was, but they did the standard loops, fly-bys etc., kind of like the Harvards did but less complex.

As I am a weather fan more so than an aviation buff, I felt obliged to take this one over my shoulder. (If it weren't for the casino at right, the Windsor economy would pretty much cease to exist.)

LIES! While these screens were pretty cool and provided some info about the races, advertisements etc., the air preshow didn't start for another 2 hours...

This guy got his anchor caught or something... either way, when the police boat tried tugging the other, it was like watching a dog being pried off a mailman's leg -- in other words, knocked the guy on his a$$ for all the spectators to see.

As the Detroit River is a main shipping lane to the world, they kept the river open for as long as possible before the aerial entertainment, which also was before the qualifying round scheduled for later in the day... "scheduled".

When this is your view from your lawn chair, you can bet it'll be a good day for some air show action.

[Groteslurf]

Great TR.

 

I sometimes watch this competition on tv and I'm always amazed about what those pilots do with their planes.

[dandaman]

Sorry about the delay... Photobucket wouldn't upload more than 100 megs, and it is an AVI file... so I ended up uploading my first Youtube video. Huzzah. (And it only took 3 hours! :rolleyes: )

 

Once again, videos first. The second day saw many of the same acrobatics as the first, therefore I got a second video of the F-18 flyby... this time it was about 10 miles per hour slower, therefore no window-shakin' sonic booms for today. Still loud as hell, though.

 

 

And now for the Youtube video... I managed to get a full video of the first pilot traversing the race course. (A few heads in the way, too, but whatever.)

 

 

Hope that works.

 

So, without further ado, Les Picserables...

And so, I end this TR here for a reason... my batteries died shortly hereafter.

 

Thanks to anyone who happens to accidentally stumble across this page while on their way looking for a more important thread.

FAIL

Not failing yet... not failing yet...

Oh, and by the way, he was British. Jolly jolly jolly! Considering his name was Nigel Lamb... how could he NOT be?

If I recall, this guy was disqualified halfway through for flying too close to the water. (Hitting a pylon takes 5 seconds off, incorrect flying knocks 3... but endanger yourself or others and you're out. Kind of like how I wish the gene pool would work.)

"99?" Now we know where Gretzky went after retirement.

Oh noes! The parking structure is collapsing in on itself!

The pilots basically have to go through the course twice; on the first time they pass through the start/finish on return, they have to pull 7 G's in what basically amounts to an Immelman inversion, then come back around and do it again with some slight directional changes.

"Look! Up in the sky!"

 

"It's a bird!"

 

"It's a plane!"

 

"No s**t, Sherlock!"

These guys are at 20-30 feet above the water for most of the race... now THAT'S talent. (And not what Hollywood or the Disney Channel would consider talent, either.)

Just about to fly through the quadro on return...

...But the best part was when he flew the entire damned (low) course using the helicopter and whatever inhuman nerve he happened to possess.

 

This would be a good time to watch the Youtube video, because the races have already started!

Some Russian pilot was announcing more information about the course while broadcasting footage on the screen again...

Thought the shadowing on these were interesting, so what the hell...

The Red Bull Skydiving Team: Powered by Taco Bell.

If the Voyage was 1000 feet taller.

They showed a helmet-cam on the big screen as they were diving. Immediately I thought of Robb jumping out of a plane, first with the helmet-cam, then with his helmet on backwards for reverse POV.

Passing of the torch... namely, the lower plane being torched in the F-18's afterburn.

WWII bomber. (B-25? I know it's not a B-29 Superfortress, but I'm not really a plane enthusiast to begin with.)

"Same"

This is what Patton would have looked like if he'd done his speech while parachuting into Normandy!

Even though you're actually pointing at Cleveland... NOTED!

The Detroit side looks a lot more crowded than ours, even though we apparently sold more tickets...

The "quadro" gate. When the gates are red, the pilots must fly with the wings vertical (NINETY DEGREES!!!); when blue, they must fly as level as possible. At the breakneck speeds they take the course at, it's pretty hard to not take some penalty seconds when you're off by just over 5 degrees! This particular one makes the pilot cross through twice... think "interlocking B&M barrel rolls", folks.

The collective audience: "Get that ugly sumbitch out the way!" (Yes, it's an MF shirt... moving on.)

Start/finish line's ready to go. The air gates are made out of a light spinnaker material so they pose no danger to the pilots when they strike them (and they have). Apparently the crew can repair these sliced-up pylons in an average time of three minutes!

Red Bull Air Race, take 2. Positioned about 7 rows further back today, but a great spot nonetheless.

[BeemerBoy]

Cool report, and great captions! Although I'm not necessarily a fan of these events, they are somewhat intriuging. Intriuging in a sense that I feel like laying odds on when we see our first disaster, and how many people are taken out? Honestly, the flying is cool, and the pilots are definitely talented. But it's only gonna take one time when one of the mechanics is tired of his job, fails to check the flux capacitor, and one of these crop dusters goes hurling into the crowd of Voyage lovers. Time's tickin'....I can feel it. Still, cool report though.

[dandaman]

^Is it wrong that that's exactly what I was thinking when I attended? (The short answer of course being "yes". )

 

You pretty much nailed my feelings for the entire event. Kinda cool, but I might not do it again. Bonus points awarded for the BTTF reference.

[dandaman]

Looks like our area gave such a good reception last year that it's back again for this weekend... I was only reminded of this as I just saw one of the race planes fly overhead! (The yellow Breitling one... Nigel Lamb, according to my past self up there.) Must be using airspace over the county for their practice runs.

 

Dan "Photos to come of this Saturday's time trials!" Smith

[Real]

I was supposed to be there. I was there last year and shot a bunch of really good photos. I just couldnt afford it this year. The racers LOVED the course so Im hoping next year itll be back and this can be something Detroit can use to bolster its crappy economy.

 

If you can go to these air shows, I dont care if you arent really into planes, GO! Its one of the most AMAZING racing spectacles I think you can see in person. NASCAR? Please, what a joke. This is far more insane.

[chemical_echo]

I'll be there but only for the actual "race" on Sunday. Can't wait.

 

I still need to buy my tickets, but seeing as there's still 48,000 left in the area I want, I think I'm ok.

 

What I find funny about it this year is that the location is listed as Windsor, ON. Last year it was the Red Bull Air Race: Detroit. I wonder what made them change the "hosting" city.

[dandaman]

I noticed that this year as well. Last year I thought it was gonna be like the Freedom Festival has become and mostly centered on Detroit (though Windsor still has the carnival and equally great view as the other side of the river of the fireworks), but it surprised me just how much coverage we received on the Canadian side. Still don't know why they wouldn't have gone with Windsor/Detroit again this year, though. Billboards advertising Windsor as the sole host city have been up for a couple of months now, including two I saw in Michigan.

 

Dan "Being a half-hour away from Windsor actually holds an advantage for once, instead of just ruining our county air!" Smith

[mcjaco]

B-25?

 

YES!

[cprocks22]

O man am I jealous . I wanted to go so bad last year but due to lack of interest it never happened, and unfortunately its the same story this year. Hope you had fun, sounds like it would be an awesome thing to see. I do believe Windsor got quite a lot more advertising then Detroit this year, I remember seeing a billboard somewhere in Ohio labeling this area as "Windsor" not even saying anything about Detroit.

[dandaman]

So yesterday was some really good times to be had at the qualifying rounds... I still got burnt, but not as badly as last year (whereas my nickname for three weeks was "Lobsterman Dan"). Enjoy.

And since I always seem to end a photo TR with a flag... quota met. So there. Thanks for reading again!

Final results for the qualifying rounds. The people who placed in the race today would be #2, #5 and #1, respectively.

One-hundredth of a second behind 1st place... now THAT'S comedy!

Hmm... the pylon on the Canadian side of the border was hit... by an American plane... I call sabotage! I've seen "Canadian Bacon" too many times for this to be a coincidence!

I kid you not, these guys had a new pylon up in under 90 seconds.

YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

 

(Last year no one hit any pylons, and today I saw six hit in about a half-hour! The wind changed direction between the Super 8 and Final 4 rounds though. Still made for some interesting fabric-choppers.

One of the Canadian Harvard aircraft decides to be merciful and take the auto industry out back and shoot it.

The signs of quality!

The two flanking aircraft are called Chipmunks, so I'ma just go ahead and count an Elissa rodent credit.

Juerg Fleischmann's stunt copter of choice (you'll see in the video later) was also the principal camera for aerial shots.

Nigel Lamb was also the same guy who was over my house doing practice flights the other day.

There goes Captain Canada!

Practicing the course is the best use of Red Bull I can think of. (Hi Tyler)

"...Whaddaya mean, the Big Mike Road Show is in Denmark?!"

 

P.S. Just saw myself on TV from archived footage this guy shot yesterday. For a fleeting moment I was broadcast nationwide. Apparently I'm already up for a Canadian Emmy. (Loonie? Woodie?)

It's like a video game you can get killed at! (Average speed is something like 350 km/h, flying about 40 feet above the water, and pull an average of 10 G's on most of the turns. Just... holy crap.)

Germany's Dolderer starts off the qualifying rounds.

This was Peter Besenyei's only race he's missed since the start of the sport in 2003.

On the set of "Air Races In the Raw".

Video of Mr. Ikea (as my dad nicknamed him out of pronunciation frustration) coming soon. I hope.

And here we have Nigel Lamb, apparently taking advantage of his new latex balloon diet.

Pete McLeod was the first Canadian and youngest pilot to ever take part in the Races. Didn't place well, but he got a lot of support from the commentators as an up-and-coming competitor.

The Race Airport was set up down at Windsor Airport. Which is rather funny, because I think it's the newest thing to come to Windsor Airport since... Windsor Airport...

NOW we bring out the big guns. This plane was responsible for breaking a few of the weaker windows on either side of the River last year, as it went slightly OVER Mach 1 instead of slightly UNDER it. Most awesome mistake I've ever witnessed.

The Navy plane was out again this year doing some barrel rolls that would make an enthusiast jealous

There was very similar preshow entertainment as last year. I'll post the couple of videos I shot after Photobucket starts liking my Internet again.

The actual race just finished (6 p.m. on Sunday) and it looks like the results are: Kirby Chambliss (3rd, USA); Hannes Arch (2nd, Austria); and Paul Bonhomme (Jolly Jolly Jolly) won all the marbles. Incidentally, Bonhomme was the guy the one announcer lost on the bet from yesterday!

But it was even funnier to see it playing out about 20 steps away from my lawn chair, especially when the cameras were off.

These guys were actually pretty funny commentators. Each had a bet going for a beer on who would win the first round. The guy on the right lost, and made good on his word and stood in line for 10 minutes at the beer tent with a distant shot of him playing on the screen when he was halfway through the line.

Oh, now you're just being inconsistent. (I sat right where the vertical crosshair intercepts the lower bank of the river.)

Well, it's nice to see the Red Bull cartographers can map every inlet and bay in Nova Scotia but can't remember the shape of Michigan...

"...Are we too late for Game 7?"

Had to keep the shipping lanes open for as long as possible.

...MUCH better!

What much of the world thinks the Canadian Air Force consists of.

The Detroit Princess was disqualified for missing the pylons. Also not flying.

The quattro pylons lead right to the home of the repeat Stanley Cup champ... ooh, too soon?

Welcome back for another look at the fastest sport on Earth! This year Windsor was the host city, with barely a mention of Detroit... I'm inclined to believe SOMEONE didn't pony up for the advertising opportunity.

[chemical_echo]

The race was awesome. My girlfriend got burnt pretty bad, but it was a lot of fun. It was crazy how many pylon hits there were in the Super 8, it made going on to the Final 4 just seem easy for the racers.

 

Food wasn't even has horribly priced as I thought it would be. I would've expected to pay around $7-$8 for the chicken caesar wrap instead of $5.

 

I really think the race would also do well in Toronto by the islands, especially since there's an airport right there.

[Xpress]

I got a chance to meet Paul Bonhome, Kirby Chambliss, and Hannas Arch this year

 

I'll tell you, their aircraft are NOTHING like your standard off the shelf Edge or Extra. They're soo much thinner on the wings, and tailfeathers, and are way lighter. Oh, and the control surfaces are bigger too

 

I took tons of pics too: http://s283.photobucket.com/albums/kk285/XpressCS/Red%20Bull%20Air%20Races%202009%20San%20Diego%20Bay/

 

Your pics are great. It's odd though, because it was cloudy down here too :/ Oh well, they still put on an awesome show, nontheless.

 

And if anyone is interested, the MXS-R race planes run around $235k a piece! :O

[dandaman]

As promised...

 

The Navy plane executing a great barrel roll, making all B&M fanboys jealous.

 

 

The fastest Canadian-built object since the Timbit-powered locomotive.

 

 

"IKEA Guy" takes us through the course.

 

 

My redbullcopter goes SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI SOI

 

[chemical_echo]

^The CF-18 isn't built in Canada.

 

If I get bored later I may resize and post some of my pictures.

[dandaman]

^Right you are. I remember now that the Canadian-built jet did a pass before I could get my camera out; the one in the video is the one from last year based out of Selfridge AFB just north of Detroit.

[chemical_echo]

Instead of cleaning my mess of a room, I decided I'd post some pictures instead.

Red Bull Air Force

Flying past a red pylon

Going into the Caesar's gate

Into the quattro

Out of the quattro

I could have added the other winners, but they didn't look as excited as the 2nd place pilot.

The Winners

The Air Race girls

[dandaman]

I was about 20 steps away from the winner's podium, but I didn't go Sunday; I like the Canadian flair on the trophies though! Great photos, especially of the Red Bull Air Force; mine didn't turn out at all.

[chemical_echo]

Thanks, it looks much better in full res though, I just saved these off my facebook so I wouldn't have to resize them for the forum.

I had no idea there were so many of the air force at first. I was just focusing on, and trying to get a picture of, the two above me that when I finally did I noticed there were another 4 off to the side.