The 2014 Air Race Season So

WHEL – Aerospace Resources & more (www.whel.de) The 2014 air race season so far Now that the spectacular first-ever Red Bull Air Race in Putrajaya, Malaysia, has come to a close it’s probably the right time for an early review. Following a three year break, the return of the air race in 2014 was desperately sought after by pilots and fans alike. Expectations were certainly high, but also clearly some things had to be changed. Now, have these changes paid off? Here’s the lowdown following three exiting races with three different winners on three fairly different race tracks. Standardised engines, propellers and exhaust systems This has probably been the most important move to re-establish the Red Bull Air Race as a competition among the best, most skilful aerobatic pilots in the world. Rather than allowing it to further evolve into a “who will spend the most on tuning his engine”-game, Formula 1-style. At the end of the 2010 season the final race at EuroSpeedway Lausitz made clear the airplanes apparently weren’t on level playing ground. There was said to be an advantage of around 20% in power from the strongest over fairly stock engines on some airplanes. We are talking some extra 50 horse powers here. At the same time lightweight props were adding performance but also safety risks. Now the standardised Lycoming Thunderbolt AEIO-540-EXP engines are quoted to be within 2% of each other. That translates to around 5 horse powers margin; something that may not make all the difference in the world. Of course, depending on whom you ask. Combined with standardised counter- weighted Hartzell composite 3-blade propellers, and also with no way to tweak engine exhaust systems, this has left race teams to focus on aerodynamic optimisation, and pilot performance of course. Given the first three races of the 2014 season have been won by three different types of airplanes – if we count the two versions of the Edge 540 separately for that matter – that’s good news for the over- all race format. And also the sole Corvus Racer, still very much being a prototype, seems to pick up after initial engine cooling issues in Abu Dhabi. The two MXS-R airplanes in the championship clearly seem to be on par with the Zivko Edge 540s. The only area of real concern are indeed engine issues several pilots have been facing since the engine raffle in December 2013. Most unfortunate had been Mike Goulian’s dead engine in Abu Dhabi which prevented him from racing. While minor engines issues are probably an occasional welcome excuse for some teams, Lycoming and Red Bull Air Race need to address quality assurance. New rules and regulations Whether eliminating knife edge flying for safety reasons was really necessary remains subject to dis- cussions. Removing the quadro gate probably made sense for logistical reasons. However, making a pylon hit result in a DNF was an overdue change in rules. (With the six second penalty from the 2010 season, any pilot would now effectively be out of competition. And passing air gates on a run’s second lap with one pylon down always had been an embarrassing sight.) The two second penalties for incorrect level flying or for being too high in an air gate are proven con- cepts; the same for missing smoke (one second penalty). The one new rule which is probably too harsh on pilots is the entry speed limit of 200 knots (370 km/h) resulting in immediate DNF once ex- ceeded. Given the technical system monitoring pilot’s entry speeds seemed to have several issues so far this season (e.g. Goulian in Rovinj, McLeod in Putrajaya), why not allow for a one percent toler- ance (i.e. plus 2 knots), resulting in a two second penalty rather than DNF? The Master Class pilots It has been most interesting to watch how pilots adopted so far to the new rules. While all twelve pilots are certainly extremely skilled, some proved to be quicker learners than others. Austrian Hannes Arch has been the biggest surprise to me up to now. He likely had by far the strongest engine in the only Edge 540 V3 flying the entire 2010 championship, and made good use of it by favouring a sometimes pretty aggressive style. Now, with engine power being substantially down (for him), he successfully made the transition to a combination of pretty smooth and mildly aggressive flying. Other pilots with obviously fast planes, like Matthias Dolderer and Martin Šonka, don’t always manage to find the right balance and occasionally tend to over-control airplanes. As was to be expected, the new format fa- vours smooth flying. So it has been no surprise that Britain’s Paul Bonhomme is again benchmark in this discipline, but also Yoshi Muroya’s Ronvinj performance showed that consistent and smooth flying can pay off. Canadian Pete McLeod, Australian Matt Hall und Englishman Nigel Lamb all seem to WHEL – Aerospace Resources & more (www.whel.de) constantly adapt their skills to the new race format, proven by the latter’s well-deserved first win in Pu- trajaya. Other contenders currently find themselves in no man’s land on the championship tableau for various reasons. Pilots like Kirby Chambliss, Mike Goulian and Matthias Dolderer are probably bump- ing into mental barriers more than anything else. Making it to the podium would boost their confidence for sure. The Challenger Cup For the future development of the Red Bull Air Race the introduction of Challenger Class pilots is one of the most thrilling aspects of the current season. Providing them with standardised Extra 330 LX twin-seaters, and the valuable coaching by former air race legends Mike Mangold and Steve Jones, has been a smart move. Besides allowing the rookie pilots to acquaint with the air race atmosphere and being able to learn from Master Class pilots, the addition of the Challenger Cup competition on qualifying day means an even more spectacular first day for local audiences. It’ll be very interesting to see fresh faces compete with seasoned pilots in 2015. Future improvements The season so far has shown that the pilots are very good at quickly adapting to new rules. Just think of Hannes Arch’s low flying approach to gates allowing for tighter high-G turning manoeuvres in Pu- trajaya. Hence, the race format with its rules and regulations needs to reviewed on a regular basis for sure. At least for now the entry speed rule, as suggested above, could do with some fine-tuning. Paul Bonhomme on race day at EuroSpeedway Lausitz, 08-Aug-2010 WH, 18-May-2014 .

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