Red Bull Air Race Day

With the buzzing of the Lycoming engines, Red Bull Air Race day was upon the city of Windsor. I awoke today to the sounds of a CF-18 roaring down the river front and rushed out the door to catch a glimpse of this awesome fighter jet doing a flyby over the riverfront, only to see it fly off into the distance never to return.../sad. But the glimpse I did catch was cool enough and with that I made up my mind that I would be headed down to the river front to watch the spectacular air races that were to take place. My father and I hopped into my car and headed downtown in an effort to find a parking pace, a futile effort at first glance but we eventually found a spot within a 5 minute walk from the river front down Caron avenue.

Follow up:

We found a decent viewing spot down at the river's edge along the railing, with hundreds of other spectators, and I must admit, it was a great spot and wonder why others would spend money on a ticket to be where they were. I think the spot that we had was probably one of the best ones available; being able to see the course in full view and right where the planes bank to go for their second run at the course.

The race itself was something I have never seen before and it was impressive, even if the course was kind of short but still, seeing planes fly by at speeds of up to 400 km/h is nothing short of awesome. We weren't there for the first few planes flying by as we were busy trying to find parking, but we got to see the rest of the races. I don't know what it is about planes that get me pumped but boy was I pumped, and when some of the pilots hit the pylons, or as they are called, air gates, I was like "holy shit that was cool", especially when they hit the red gates that seemed to explode on impact.

In between the heats we were treated to an aerial acrobatic helicopter display and upon seeing a helicopter in real life do barrel rolls and back flips, I was stoked. When the race was finished, we were treated to another flyby but this time it was a US Navy Corsair F4U (i think?)and when that one was done, a pair of yellow planes and one biplane did a flyby but I do not know what kinds they were.

I am glad that I went, for originally I wasn't going to, and I am also glad that CUPE strikers made good on their promise not to picket the races as this was Windsor's time to shine in the spotlight and hopefully we did, on the world stage. Some pics of the event follow. Sorry about the quality but they were taken on a Canon powershot, nothing special.

Canadian rookie Pete McLeod finished in the top 12, placing 11th. Great job Pete

Here are the final stats for the day-

1-Paul Bonhomme of Great Britain
2-Hannes Arch of Austria
3-Kirby Chambliss of United States
4-Mike Mangold of United States
5-Sergey Rakhmanin of Russia
6-Michael Goulian of United States
7-Matt Hall of Australia
8-Nigel Lamb of Great Britain
9-Nicolas Ivanoff of France
10-Alejandro Maclean of Spain
11-Pete McLeod of Canada
12-Glen Dell of South Africa
13-Matthias Dolderer of Germany
14-Yoshi Muroya of Japan
15-Peter Besenyei of Hungary