Monday 22 February, mid-Atlantic, Westbound… I’m writing this whilst on my way to Phoenix to carry on with our engine testing for the forthcoming season. We managed a couple of days of testing in the second week of February but then had to “leg-it” back to Europe for the annual gathering in Salzburg of all the Red Bull Air Race pilots and team coordinators. The reason for meeting is to discuss policy, rules, sanctions etc prior to the 2010 season opener in Abu Dhabi in March.

What did we learn? Disappointingly, the 82 kgs pilot weight has been given a 2% buffer so that the real light-weights won’t have to take as much ballast with them as I had hoped. I should have shouted louder at the meeting but I guessed that it wouldn’t have done me much good… I’ll just have to lose another 1.6 kgs myself! (Laura, pass the lettuce please!)…

Other rule changes are the introduction of a buffer zone for the start speed penalty. You’ll remember from last year that anything up to and including 200 knots was good but 201 was a DQ (disqualification). It was felt that it was a bit harsh to go from being ok to a DQ in one go so it is being changed this year to:

≤200 kts:  Good

201 – 205 kts:  1 second penalty

≥206 kts:  DQ

The other rule change is that the penalty for not having a working smoke system is going to be a one second penalty. Last year it was a €2000 fine which was felt to be too lenient. For those who might not be aware, the smoke system saps power from the engine… it’s all to do with the expansion of the smoke fluid as it is injected into the exhaust pipe… it vaporizes creating the eye-catching smoke trail but that expansion as it vaporizes restricts the breathing of the engine and creates a loss of power. Now some would say that €2000 is quite cheap power and if one was to be cynical, you could point the finger at a number of racers who seem to “run-out” of smoke at particularly convenient moments… not any more as it’ll mean a one second penalty (although the judging of what is or is not acceptable has yet to be proven… this could be a hot topic this year). I was fined for “no-smoke” a couple of years ago… after I landed, I was approached by a gaggle of folks interested in what technical malfunction could have possibly occurred to stop my smoke working. I had to admit that the snag was my finger which had not moved the switch to “on”… an expensive mistake but easy to fix!

We were also all on the prowl last week trying to find out what all the other teams have been doing to their aeroplanes over the winter. Here’s my “not very comprehensive” and probably not very accurate summary (please bear in mind that a competitor in any sport is going to be economical with the truth just four weeks before the first race hence my request not to quote me on anything written below):

Hannes has just flown his new Edge V3, built for racing with a new cowling and a carbon covered rear fuselage, probably very light (at the minimum weight we guess… the rules say 540 kgs with a 1% margin = 534.6 kgs) and almost certainly with another LyCon engine.

Matt Hall, new MXS and has hinted at not having an engine yet.

Kirby Chambliss, not sure about the aeroplane but seems to have commissioned a new engine supplier… will it work?

Nicolas Ivanoff… we think he is using the same aeroplane as last year with radical streamlining. There is an interesting development (apparently) with his exhaust which is going to be exiting the cowling at the side. Could be interesting with the smoke!

Nigel Lamb… he’s gone down the new engine route too and I saw his aeroplane in the UK last week with an interesting oil cooler development.

Peter Besenyei… has he got a new aeroplane? There is a rumour that he might be flying the new Corvus racer although it has to date not been approved to race by the Red Bull Technical Committee. On the one hand I hope he does race it but I hope it’s not too quick!

Matthias Dolderer… he’s done some work on his cowling to improve cooling drag and from what I saw in Barcelona last year will almost certainly be using the same or better LyCon engine to power himself around (his net times in Barcelona were VERY quick).

Mike Goulian… he’s apparently going for a new engine from the same supplier as Kirby.

Sergey Rakhmanin… he’s waiting for his new MXS but I’m not sure when it’s due. He might start the season in last year’s aeroplane.

Alex Maclean… He’s invested in two new engines.

Yoshi Muroya… not sure but heard his mods were taking him right up to the deadline for shipping to Abu Dhabi.

Pete Mcleod… not sure!

Martin Sonka… will be flying Mike Mangold’s 2009 aeroplane and is lightening it.

Adilson Kindelmann… will be flying the MXS formerly owned by Steve Jones, that was flown by Matt Hall in 2009 … not sure about modifications.

Technically, there is a plan ahead to get our engine data down-linked to the hangar live using the onboard telemetry system. This will mean that Wade will be able to monitor the engine as I thrash around the track. This will be excellent for performance tweaks as well as safety (as long as the other teams don’t get our data).

We’re also being asked to fit heavier camera/telemetry boxes which live in a purpose built housing behind the pilots head. Now this is a sensitive location regarding the centre of gravity of the aeroplane and some teams will be making quite radical changes to accommodate the weight of the new system in this location. (An aeroplane fore and aft is a little bit like a see-saw and you need the weight to be centred around the main wing or centre of lift… every aeroplane flying will have a balance chart/equation and the weight centre has to fall between two points. If it doesn’t, then the aeroplane will not be as controllable as the designer intended and worse case will be unflyable). This might involve moving heavy items of equipment forward so that the overall balance of the heavier telemetry box behind the pilot does not have a detrimental effect on the C of G (centre of gravity). It is all good clean fun but extra workload at this stage of the season… it will mean though a better quality of coverage for the viewer at home.

I’m going back to my in-flight movie and a cup of tea… and I’m looking forward to engine testing tomorrow morning!

 

We’ve all been busy at Team Bonhomme getting ready for the start of the 2010 season…

Christmas was a quiet affair for most of the Team… I spent Christmas day at home with the family as did Nigel. Wade meanwhile spent Christmas day in the hangar sanding off paint from the aeroplane and then went to McDonalds for lunch… that is what I would call dedication and in my book gets the 2009 Team Bonhomme Loyalty Award!

After Christmas I went to Cape Town in for an airline trip and spent a very enjoyable 7 hours hiking up and down Table Mountain twice… good for the heart and good for the weight-loss regime for the new season…

I visited Phoenix at the start of January to see how Wade was getting on and as usual he’d been amazingly busy and had successfully lightened the aeroplane significantly. We’ve also changed a lot about the aeroplane… not that anyone would notice by a casual glance but it’s been completely disassembled and rebuilt from the ground up. Another visit to Arizona at the end of January got me and the aeroplane into the air (albeit with last year’s engine) but it’s going extremely well (the weight reduction has worked) and we’re very excited about our new power supply which is due in the next week or so.

That same week saw me mixing with Messrs Chambliss, Goulian and McLeod at the Living Legends of Aviation awards in Beverly Hills (I hasten to add that I am not one of them, a legend that is!)… what a great evening to be in the same room as Buzz Aldrin, Frank Robinson, Bob Hoover, Clay Lacey and countless other amazing aviation legends… not to mention the Hollywood types of John Travolta, Tom Cruise and Kurt Russell… Getting to Beverly Hills was a grin. It was in the same week that saw record rainfall in the South West corner of the United States and Wade and I had planned on catching a flight to Burbank… those flight were cancelled due to strong winds (60 mph across the runway!) so we decided to drive. 7 hours of driving in torrential rain made me feel at home… not that it ever rains in England of course.

I’m planning on another visit to Phoenix this week… we’re expecting our new engine soon and I’m itching to get airborne to see how it works. Then I’m back to Salzburg for the annual pilots meeting before returning to Arizona for more testing at the end of the month. The week in Salzburg is not ideally timed… we’ve had aeroplanes in the hangar for the whole of January and just when we can start flying, we have to be in Europe talking about it. I’m disappointed about the loss of 8 days of testing but I think we’re one of the better placed teams… at least we’ve already tested our aerodynamic mods for 2010, it’s just the engine to test next.

The pressure is on because on the 4th March, the aeroplane will be dismantled for shipping to the UAE for the first race… and in exactly the same way as last year, Abu Dhabi will offer us a fascinating view of the other teams winter mods and a chance to see how they go in the track. As we’ve seen before, we’ll only really know after the qualifying runs just before race day… that’ll be the first time that everyone is out challenging for quick laps….

 

Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom – 20^th January 2010 

I’m writing this in Phoenix where it is warm and sunny… a far cry from the blizzard conditions that we are having at home in the UK this week. Why am I in Phoenix? This is our winter base for 09/10 and where our winter mods will take place… it’s also where the Hammond can be found in his usual habitat of a hangar. Wade is as usual for this time of year working his magic with various projects on the Team 55 race aeroplane. I’d normally now write a short essay on the exact details of our mod plans but as no-one else has spilt the beans on their plans for next year, I’m not going to either! Nor will I be drawn at this stage on how we will be powered around the sky… suffice to say we are talking with some extremely professional engine builders in an attempt to better our less than perfect set-up from last season.

On the subject of modifications, we’re all governed by a technical manual called “part E” which is what the Red Bull Air race technical committee have published which sets out what we can and can’t do to the aeroplanes. Broadly speaking, it allows us to individually modify the aeroplanes to make them go faster but staying within the bounds of safety… the big difference with this type of racing over ground based racing is that if we suffer an engine failure we can’t just pull over to the side of the track. Normally we’re over water or at the very least land that is not designed to be a runway. Hence the need for rules which keep our aeroplanes and engines reliable (as reliable as any machine can be) to lessen the risk. So for our winter mods we can’t just modify the aeroplane as we like, we have to consult the technical folks at Red Bull who’ll decide whether or not our plans fit into the “safe” category or not… the fun here is the need for information and it goes without saying that we’re all very keen to know what the others are up to. A good sport at this time of year is rumour spreading… like any rumour, you start it and see how long it takes to get back to you and in what form. I’ve just started one today about a radical new modification… see if you can read about it somewhere in the next week or so… (actually someone is doing it and we’re waiting to see if it works and the rumour might pick up some facts on the way round!)

Rule changes for 2010: next year there will be a minimum pilot weight of 82 kgs… this is very good news for the heavier pilots amongst us (Kirby Chambliss, Alex Maclean and me) as those who are less than 82 kgs will have to add weight to the aircraft if they’re lighter than the minimum. Of course, if you’re heavier than 82 then it’s time to lose weight… and Christmas is a great time to try and do that! It’ll be great for the race as it’ll even up the field and we can expect to see even closer times than we saw last year.

 

The last month has been fairly hectic… I attended the BBC East Sports awards in Newmarket on the 8th December and then the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award at Sheffield on the 13th December. Great to be in the company of so many top sports legends and it crossed my mind that the room was full of people who know how to win… who know how to get the best out of themselves and to apply that to their chosen sport… you’d be on to a winner if you could tap that experience and successfully apply it to your own sport. I concluded that the one common feature of all those who attended was their determination and will to win. I don’t suppose any of them just stumbled onto their success… 

 

Laura and I got married in November… what a wonderful day and topped off with the most bizarre of wedding day endings… I helped turn on the Christmas lights in my original home town of Maidenhead and then we went to White Waltham airfield where I thought we were meeting friends for a curry (great idea for a wedding night don’t you think!)… actually Laura had organized a surprise party for me to celebrate my win in the Air Race… upwards of 200 people were there and what a night… folks came from Chicago and Hong Kong as well as just about everywhere else and we “hit it with a big stick” (“partied hard” for those of you who don’t know the phrase)… an even better plan for a wedding night!



As the end of year holiday approaches, Team Bonhomme would like to say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of our fans and followers… THANK YOU SO MUCH for your support and kind messages throughout the year. It really does give us a boost to know that we’re being pushed over the line by your enthusiasm! As for your support for 2010, we’re going to have a great line-up of races… confirmed so far is Abu Dhabi 25/26 March; we’re going back to Australia and will be in Perth on 17/18 April and as always we’ll be racing in Budapest on their National Holiday of 20th August (19th for qualifying). A new venue of Lisbon has been confirmed for 4/5 September. The other races will be confirmed by the middle of January but I’ve been told to expect a total of between 8 to 10 races.

 

Enjoy the Festive season and we’ll update you on our progress early in the New Year…

So the race year is over and I ask myself… “Did we have fun?”

As I ponder over the evening of celebration in Barcelona, the answer has to be “YES!”… but if I think back to the year of racing there were plenty of times where I wondered about the fun and thought about the hard work and concentration that was spent getting us to the final podium…

In January, February and March, Wade and the team in Mojave worked their nuts off to get the aeroplane ready… and I mean worked. Most of us can do a couple of 12 hour days, most can do a 14 hour day and occasionally a 16 hour day… but the Mojave team worked flat out, 16 hours a day for around two months… and the results were fantastic. Our new “pointy” aeroplane was the “bee’s knees”… what I hadn’t concentrated on, which other teams had, was power… I’d ordered a new engine for 2009 but it wasn’t radical enough to provide us with enough power to challenge the other teams, especially around the power hungry tracks (all of them except Porto!)… 2009 would be interesting…

Abu Dhabi… Hot! The introduction of the new G-suit made us feel even hotter and to start with, I was not impressed. As the week went on though I got used to the new suit and actually now, I really enjoy the 2G of extra protection that it gives… but at the time it was hot and I was sweating buckets before during and after each race. The day after the race, the family and I spent the day at the Hilton Beach Club… what a contrast! Beach shorts, cool drinks and the occasional dip in the pool… compare that to the 230 mph, octane fueled, 12g, hot and sweaty days beforehand…

San Diego… I love the relaxed atmosphere and climate of Southern California and I love San Diego… this was the first of our fog days for 2009, and how bizarre it was to be waiting at Brown Field in the blue sky and 30c sunshine because of bad weather in the track… it all worked though and we had a very successful race. Hannes proved that you can fly without a tail plane (after his pelican strike) but I’m not sure that he’d do the same again. What didn’t work was my back… it seized up on Q day and I had to be virtually carried from the plane to the hangar. I wondered if I was going to be able to fly on race day but thanks to some expertly applied massaging and a few exercises I was “serviceable” for the big day. If there are any youngsters reading this, my top tip is “stay flexible”… stretch as much as you can and make sure you look after your back. Take some advice on how to stay supple and never stop stretching and keep your core muscles strong! You’ll laugh now but wait until you collapse on the floor when you are 40 and then you’ll wish you did something about it!

Windsor… Great fun, an incredibly sociable town and if you only do one more thing in your life, experience the Windsor hospitality. Also great for Team Bonhomme because we won!

Budapest… it was amazing to come away from Budapest with a second place as I was flying like an idiot all week but somehow managed to behave myself on race day and fly smoothly and in a disciplined fashion. Well done to Mikey G who got to the top of the podium for the first time… and thank you to Kirby Chambliss who wedged his way into third place putting Hannes in fourth… without doubt this was a turning point psychologically for the race to the title and this is where the real pressure started to mount on those challenging for the top spot (Me and Hannes!)…

Porto… I’ve had the most “pointy” aeroplane all year and I wanted straight tracks to help me with my lack of power. On top of that we changed back to my 2008 race engine as the 2009 package was not working as advertised… so would it all come together? Yes… Porto was the first race of the year where I won the qualifying and race days with the fastest times, both gross and net… up until now I’d always been slower, either gross or net, for at least one part of the weekend (when I say gross or net, I mean with or without penalties applied… for example, I was quicker than Hannes in the San Diego race final but only after his 2 second penalty had been applied, otherwise he was quicker)… This was a pivotal moment again in the year’s calendar and it came at a perfect time after the advantage of Budapest. It was also our second race of the year to be affected by fog… we first flew in the track on Saturday morning after waiting all week for a fog-free track and runway… it worked though and we trained, qualified and raced entirely on the two weekend days of Saturday and Sunday.

Barcelona… pressure-pressure-pressure… Whatever clap-trap came out of my mouth during the Barcelona race about “not feeling the pressure” and it “just being another race”, you can now ignore! I was feeling the pressure and so was Hannes. For me it was the third year of “nearly” getting the title and I didn’t want anything to get in my way… especially my own head! What helped was having, I think, the best team on the airfield… Wade and Nigel oozed calm during the race and I mean caaaaalm. They were both super-professional and our race routine did not even waiver slightly… so did Jim Reed who, even after my appalling run around in the Top-12, just said “go and do what you do best Mr. Bonhomme”… it was just what I needed. The rest we all know about… but I do remember flying back to the runway staring at the sun out to the west and feeling extremely emotional… there might even have been a tear in my eye…

Fun? If you’d asked Wade if he was having fun whilst covered in dust in a Mojave hangar at midnight in February, he’d probably have hesitated… if you’d asked Nigel whilst tracking a spare part for the tenth time at 3am if he was having fun, he’d probably hesitate too… if you asked me at 1 am before a 5.30am wake-up if I was having fun studying my track data, I would have hesitated too… but I bet you if you ask us all now, did we have fun? Bloody right we did! And the best bit is that we can’t wait for next year to do it all over again… 

 

I’m sorry that this pit news has taken so long to post but we’ve been busy trying to win a trophy… and I don’t know what Freddy Mercury and Montserrat Caballé were singing about when they released “Barcelona” in the late eighties but the words and music seem to fit my chase for the title perfectly… so with the music turned up loud here we go… (Please click on the attached external link at the bottom of this page first before reading further, with credit to Queen  and Montserrat Caballé).

After Porto, I spent a weekend at the Goodwood Revival flying a P51 Mustang... it is such a great event and if you haven’t been, I’d recommend you try it. I was asked to fly a Mustang there and in the end flew five displays either as a two ship with another Mustang or as a four ship with the other Mustang and two Spitfires… and in the gaps we just enjoyed watching the car and motorcycle racing with the odd cup of tea and slice of cake… all very civilised. I also was asked to help judge the Spirit of Aviation aircraft competition alongside, amongst others, astronaut Buzz Aldrin… a truly memorable weekend.

Meanwhile it was back to the racing… I’ve been having this perfect dream for a while now (actually three years) where I win the last race of the season and claim the Championship trophy at the same time… I reckoned that it was achievable but for some reason I kept coming up short… what would the end of the 2009 season bring? As we mustered for the last race I was feeling unbelievably relaxed… I was wondering when and if the pressure would start to mount… I’d soon find out…

…and the Thursday training sessions would be where it started. Hannes and I were obviously feeling something as we ended up 7th and 9th respectively in training 1 (my net time was 4 seconds behind him) but 1st and 2nd after training 2 (me still 2 seconds behind his time). I went to bed that night with a hollow feeling as I was way off the pace and some of the other guys were well on the pace. Could they help Hannes to the win if he does well and I flounder down the field? Friday came with some guide and inspiration in the form of the Technical Director who declared that Hannes was running with an illegal compression ratio. As with Kirby in Windsor and Alex in Budapest, he would have to change his engine before the qualifying session on Saturday… relief for me as I couldn’t work out how he was going so fast… We followed that with winning the last training session on Friday whilst Hannes stayed in the hangar changing his engine (his spare was flown down to Barcelona in a Citation Jet direct from Salzburg… a convenient coincidence that the jet was flying down on Friday anyhow!) So we ended the day feeling slightly more optimistic but we were still off the pace…

Saturday was, as always, qualifying day… the wind had been behaving all week and had followed the traditional pattern of land breeze until lunchtime and then going around to a sea breeze in the afternoon… today was the same and the wind was just a gentle breeze. What wouldn’t be just a “breeze” was winning the one point available in the Q sessions. As Hannes hadn’t flown on Friday afternoon, he was starting the Q1 and as I was flying last, we in the Team Bonhomme hangar had the opportunity to watch his run. I briefed the team that we should be very careful with our demonstration of emotion as any grimacing, disappointment or even smiling could be used by the TV folks and might seem unsporting (I’ve been shown to laugh at a different time to real life before and it does look like bad form)… so with dead pan looks all round, Hannes entered the track for Q1. He then hit gate 3 and took out the pylon… We all managed to remain dead pan but deep down I knew that this pylon strike could be a pivotal moment in the race for the trophy… the bells weren’t ringing out yet but maybe they were getting nearer! After Hannes’ run was complete, our engineer Jim Reed muttered under his breath in a ventriloquist style, “Can I laugh now as I’ve just bitten my tongue and my mouth is full of blood!”… It was all Wade and I could do to run behind the scenes and wet ourselves laughing… I must stress we were not laughing at Hannes but just the situation… and in any case he had the last laugh on Q day as his next time in Q2 was an utterly devastating 1:21:06… we finished 4th in a trio of 1:22 times… cue the hollow feeling as I fell asleep that night now three points ahead instead of four with the tide going his way… Sunday would be fun…

On Wednesday in the build up to the race, we’d had an official opening of the race with several dignitaries and the trophy placed centre stage… I’d not seen it before but now I had… and in a very strange way I couldn’t look at it. I didn’t want to be photographed staring at it as I knew in my heart of hearts that if I did lose the competition, that photo would come back to haunt me… there followed a most amusing thirty minutes with me staring everywhere except at the Trophy… and I could see out of the corner of my eye a keen camera man just desperate for me to look… I just hoped that we, the trophy and I, would get to meet on Sunday…

…and Sunday arrived. My brief to myself was just to fly a steady run in the Top 12 and get into the next round and all would be fine. So that was easy then…! Briefing is one thing but actually going out and doing it is another thing altogether… I took off but the gentle breeze had picked up and some folks were having a torrid time in the Quaddro. The wind was blowing across the quad compressing the turn into a tight left hander that could leave you desperately short of space… hence the array of pylon hits and penalties we saw on gate 3… I must not do the same… I didn’t but when the Race Director announced my time and the fact that I was fifth (with still Matt Hall, Nicolas Ivanoff and Hannes Arch to fly) I’d risked the whole year on my “steady run”… it was a bit too steady and as I flew back to the airport, I wracked my brain to see where I could go faster…

The guys at the airport were great… Nigel, Wade, Jim and Zach were all extremely calm and were hiding their concerns extremely well. Wade and I looked at the split times and recognized a couple of places where I was losing time… Jim’s final words to me as I climbed back in for the Super 8 round were along the lines of “stop thinking about it too much and just do what you do best!”… amazingly it worked and we finished first in that round… meanwhile Hannes had just posted a time of 1:24:30 but included in that was a two second penalty… so he was still consistently quicker than me with net times which would mean that this whole year was going down to the wire. I’d have to be extremely careful in the Final Four round and also hope that the “spoilers”, the guys that had suddenly picked up the pace in this race, would not get in between a winning Hannes and me…

There followed a super-quick turn-around… which is a feat in itself. One aspect of these races is that you cannot afford to get dehydrated… hence we all sip away all day to avoid even getting close to drying out. So the situation goes something like this… you drink all day, then you drink some more, you then put on a 6.5 kg G-suit, a parachute and a life-jacket and then strap yourself super-tight into an aeroplane and then pull 11g… and guess what, you then need to go to the toilet… I’m always amused that even in the quickest of turn-arounds, what with re-fueling, checking of split times, analyzing video footage and drinking more water… there is always the vision of me staggering to the toilet because by then I’ll be bursting! Sorry to share that with you but it’s not all Champagne and medals!

So into the Final Four I went, knowing that this could be make or break. I knew now that I just needed to be third or better which also meant “penalty free”… I could not afford to make a mistake as either Hannes, Nigel lamb or Matthias Dolderer would be there to pounce… I flew after Nigel and Matthias and knew that my time was pretty good… it felt like my Super 8 run and I was sure that I’d not made any mistakes (it was actually a 1:22:87… 0.02 of a second slower than my previous run)…I then went into the hold to watch Hannes fly… now normally you cannot tell from above whether another pilot has done well or not because you don’t have his time and you cannot see any penalties… but when you see a gate fall down, you do know that it’s going to be 6 seconds more than before! That is exactly what I saw and I bit my tongue!!! Was this the moment? Jimmy Di Matteo, the Race Director, read out the times and confirmed that I’d won the Barcelona race and also the Championship… YEEEEEEEE HAAAAAAA!!!! After a gentle (actually not so gentle) loop and a roll for the crowd I flew back to the race airport staring out to the west watching the sun start to set on the Barcelona horizon… such a beautiful horizon!

 

Words and music by Freddie Mercury and Mike Moran

Barcelona barcelona

Barcelona barcelona

Viva

I had this perfect dream

-un sueno me envolvio

This dream was me and you

-tal vez estas aqui

I want all the world to see

-un instinto me guiaba

A miracle sensation

My guide and inspiration

Now my dream is slowly coming true

The wind is a gentle breeze

-el me hablo de ti

The bells are ringing out

-el canto vuela

They�re calling us together

Guiding us forever

Wish my dream would never go away

Barcelona - it was the first time that we met

Barcelona - how can I forget

The moment that you stepped into the room you took my breath away

Barcelona - la musica vibros

Barcelona - y ella nos unio

And if God willing we will meet again someday

Let the songs begin

-dejalo nacer

Let the music play

-ahhhhhhhh...

Make the voices sing

-nace un gran amor

Start the celebration

-van a mi

And cry

-grita

Come alive

-vive

And shake the foundations from the skies

Ah,ah,shaking all our lives

Barcelona - such a beautiful horizon

Barcelona - like a jewel in the sun

Por ti sere gaviota de tu bella mar

Barcelona - suenan las campamas

Barcelona - abre tus puertas al mundo

If God is willing

-if God is willing

If God is willing

Friends until the end

Viva - barcelona

Friday and Saturday turned into a game of “musical airports”. On Friday we sat and watched the fog and I drank tea… just like flying in the UK winter… and then after lunch there was a chink of light from the east… Jurg, the helicopter film pilot, decided to go and have a look and he then invited me to go with him… the fog was sat right over our temporary runway but amazingly it was clear at the eastern end of the runway. So the decision was made to fly out of the car park and move the aeroplanes to Maia, our original mustering airport, where we hopefully would not suffer from the fog. The track all this time had been sat in blue skies and sunshine… after we arrived in Maia, the fog which had previously not threatened the track decided to waft (good word “waft”) up the river and obscured the bridge on the run-in to the track. It decided to do this after I had taken off for my training run… so I enjoyed another little scenic tour of Porto from the air and ended up back at, you guessed it, Maia… we left the aeroplanes there for the night with the plan of running the qualifying day from there.

Qualifying day was fun. We flew a training session in the morning and then the Q flights in the afternoon… I managed a 1:10:03 in Q1 and then got clobbered with a 2 second penalty in Q2 for turning early in a gate (it would have been a 1:09:85)… either way it didn’t matter as it was enough to clinch the one point… Yoshi flew extremely well in Q1 with a 1:10:97 as did Matthias with his 1:11:09… Kirby threatened in Q2 with his 1:10:26 as did Matt with his 1:10:78 (Kirby missed Q1 after he busted the G limit in the morning training session and spent Q1 completing an over-g inspection). By now we’d all set up camp in one of the hangars at Maia and it was interesting seeing the other pilots preparing for the flights. It varied from talking a lot… to sleeping… to eating… to watching track videos. Sleeping was my choice of prep (always has been) and I felt pretty fresh after my nap… it seemed to work again on this occasion. At the end of the day, the music started again and we all got airborne and when it stopped we were all back at the TRW on the coast… an interesting decision with the fog situation but one that was spot-on…

…Race day dawned to hazy sunshine and the weather remained fair all day… It was the 13th of the month, there were, at the end, 13 pilots in the race (Kirby and Glen out for technical reasons) and guess what? We got 13 points for the weekend… lucky for some! Notable events in the Top 12 round were Matthias posting a storming run putting him third in the Top 12, Kirby roasting around the track with a 1:08:88 and then subsequently going unserviceable (due to a fuel leak after the first round… this was a pivotal moment in my mind as Kirby could have threatened my win or on the other hand repeated his Budapest run and put a gap between Hannes and me… lots of “what if’s” here but it all worked out well for Team Bonhomme)… amusingly between the Super 8 round and the final four, I lost my aeroplane! I strolled back to the grid-stand, watching my last-run video, and looked up to find an empty grid-stand. It was back in the hangar, so I tried again and then got upset because I couldn’t find my parachute and life-jacket… I was about to admonish the team for not having my kit when Wade reminded me that I was wearing it… clearly my mind was on the track!

Also of significance was Hannes’ run in the final four… if you look at the sector split times, he and I were posting identical times (+0.07, -0.33, -0.12) but from the video and the last sector time, it’s my guess that he’d got a bit of buffet in the last Cuban hence my final advantage of -0.94 of a second. This would have resulted from too much back pressure at some stage in the pull-up and his wing might have stalled… this is where the airflow over the surface of the wing separates and becomes turbulent creating huge amounts of drag… not a good thing when you’re trying to go fast… either way it helped our path to the win. And well done to Matt Hall for his first podium (third)… Hannes and I joined teams on the podium and briefed Matt that we always sprayed the crowd first with the Champagne and then “if there was any left”, we could aim for each other… like a duck to water Matt went for the crowd and Hannes and I managed to empty both bottles down his neck… childish but fun!

So onto Barcelona… I flew my aeroplane to Barcelona on Monday morning in company with Brad Huelsman in Mikey G’s Edge… it was a gentle 2 hour 35 minute flight and we managed to avoid the early morning fog at the Porto end and the thunderstorms at the Barcelona end… and once again we found some Buzzards soaring over the hills just south of Zaragoza. As for the gap between here and the next race, I’m planned to fly a Mustang at the Goodwood Revival this weekend, followed by a few days off before I go back out to Barcelona. The track there should be fun… it’s an interesting looking track and one which will involve some turning… I can’t wait to get racing there, I’m very pleased to be flying with a more powerful engine and one way or the other, we are looking forward to some post-season refreshments…

 

 The Victory Show at Cosby was perfect… lots of re-enacting and pyrotechnics and I got to roar around in the most famous Spitfire in the world doing aerobatics with Mr Kay in his Mustang… the Leicester curry on the Saturday night was superb and quality wise on a par with the Mumbai curry last week… it led nicely into Monday morning with an early start and a warm beverage and croissant with the Air Race Technical Director, Adrian Judd, at Stansted airport before our early flight to Porto.

We went straight to Maia airport where I flew twice to get my hand/eye coordination back up to speed and to “reload my muscle memory” for this Edge’s controls (little bit different to a Spitfire or 747!)… I was expecting a busy Maia airport with lots of other guys testing and training but I had the airfield to myself for the morning… as you may or may not know, flying on your own without worrying about other traffic, keeping a schedule, flying a particular pattern or route is an immense pleasure… it is three dimensional freedom and made particularly pleasant in the blue skies of Portugal on a summer morning. The small café at the airport does a superb “café de leite” and one of those in the shade and quiet of their veranda is a perfect way to fill the gap between flights…

Monday evening saw us sampling the local produce on the banks of the Douro river and Tuesday was almost a repeat of Monday. Wednesday we moved to our temporary runway (TRW) on the coast. It’s a great location and a short walk to the bars and cafes on the beach… the runway itself is converted from a car park for this week and it concentrates the mind. It is about 600 metres long and is sloped, in fact stepped, so when landing from the sea (going east) it slopes up for about 200 metres, then levels, then slopes up again. It’s important to be on the ground in the first section because once you transit from the uphill section to the level section, you’ll go light on your wheels and lose a bit of breaking action. It’s made more complicated by the wind which, funny old thing, tends to blow from the sea! The choice then is an uphill landing (better for stopping) but with a tailwind (faster ground speed) OR a downhill landing (not good for stopping) and a headwind (slower ground speed)… the swap-over is about 10 knots of wind (assuming it’s from the west)… less than 10 tailwind and it’s better to land uphill and more than that, then it’s probably better to land into wind… it’s fun and adds some interest after a run down the racetrack at 370 kmph and 30 feet!

Thursday was spent watching the fog rolling in and out of the TRW and as a result there was no flying. I told Steve Jones that I had also met the Hollywood actress and model Andie McDowell today… his experience and skill as a pilot and engineer has clearly not been honed by watching movies… he answered “how is he?”

 It’s now Friday morning and we’re waiting for the fog to clear again… I hope the fog does not become my theme for the next pit news!

 

The significance of various things in life was rammed home in a tragic fashion on the Saturday after the race in Budapest… as you’ll have read in this pit news last week, Vicki Cruse was killed whilst flying my spare Edge at the World Aerobatic Championships at Silverstone. I’ve spent many hours worrying about crap and trivia in my life but when something like this happens, you realise what is important in the world. I just wish there was something we could do to wind the clock back and change circumstances… Vicki was a superstar for us last year in lending us her Edge in the States so we could measure up for some aerodynamic mods whilst my aeroplane was on a ship on the way back from Australia… it felt appropriate that I should lend her my aeroplane here in the UK. I’m glad I could help but now I wish I hadn’t… it’s a very strange feeling. One thing is for sure, and that is that you can replace machinery but you cannot bring people back… it is incredibly sad…

Steve Jones and I flew some shows in the Sukhois… the weather was generally kind to us but the weather at Dunsfold added a little challenge. We had to contend with a low cloud base and watching some of the other displays helped our pre-flight planning (thanks to the Blades for the weather check!)… we were lucky and we managed to comfortably squeeze our display in between the ground and the cloud.

A trip to Mumbai in the 747 followed and I thoroughly enjoy Indian cuisine… I consider myself very spoilt to be able to go to Mumbai for a curry!

And onto the race aeroplane… the engine we fitted in Mojave in March has never struck me as the most powerful motor ever produced and as we found out during the mid-summer break, it was not very impressive on the dyno. We made the decision then that we would fit another engine after the Budapest race. The aeroplane was ferried back to the UK by Steve Jones (he’s promised not to “spill the beans” about its performance) and then Wade set about swapping the engine for last year’s race engine which we are sure is more powerful… we also added another tweak which we are confident will help… (I might tell you “what” at the end of the year!)

I flew the aeroplane four times from High Wycombe and am pleased with the change… the real test will come when we get into the track in Porto and I’m hoping for more consistent results than Budapest! My ferry flight down to Porto was met with an amazing amount of luck in the weather department… the forecast was awful but amazingly I flew all the way down from Wycombe, across the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg and then down the French coast from Dinard to Biarritz without any significant diversions around weather. Fuel at Biarritz preceded a gentle trundle across Northern Spain in the sunshine… I found a Buzzard soaring at 7000 feet… I’m just sorry that I probably ruined her peace and quiet up there…

This weekend I’m scheduled to fly MH434, the Spitfire, at the Victory Show at Cosby… great fun as Laura is the Display Director (so I’d better behave!) and tradition has it that we all go for a curry on the Saturday night (interesting to compare a Leicester curry with a Mumbai curry… could be close!)…

And first thing Monday, I climb on a scheduled flight to Porto to go racing. Oh for a crystal ball to see what will happen at the races. Trivia? Yes… far more importantly, if we’d had a crystal ball two weeks ago, we could have stopped Vicki from going flying…

 

We are deeply saddened by the loss of Vicki Cruse whilst flying at the World Aerobatic Championships on Saturday. Vicki helped Team Bonhomme hugely at the end of last year when she lent us her Edge for some engineering measurements. She came to our rescue at short notice when we needed to measure up for a new canopy and our aeroplane was somewhere on a ship in the Pacific… Our deepest sympathy goes out to her family and friends…

I’ve experienced some odd weeks in my time but that one just about takes the biscuit… For whatever reason I could not get “in the groove” with my aeroplane… I was starting to get really worried for Wade and Nigel because they’d got the team really well oiled (Wade with the aeroplane and Nigel with all the organisation and admin) and there was I, flying like a prat! Normally, I start reasonably well in a race week and then gradually improve to post some good times on race day… it started with first training and I was running in 3rd place. No great drama here because first training is always a tester for us to find out exactly how the track lies. Second training I ended up 8th after a two second penalty… 8th! This was definitely going in the wrong direction. Third training I was back to second, 0.46 of a second behind Mikey G… so not too bad and then onto fourth training where I found a two second penalty and ended up 5th… by now I was really starting to wonder what was up and annoyingly some other guys were posting some very good net times. And in line with the theory that a bad workman blames his tools, I was wondering if we had enough power…

Onto qualifying day and here we go again… Muppet features here managed to completely mess up the approach to the bridge in Q1 and I posted a very generous 1:17:26 which included two 2 second penalties and ended up after Q1 in 10th place! It was like I was “hour-building” as I did all those years ago in a Piper Cub over White Waltham… flying extra hours just for the log-book… Team Bonhomme, Nigel and Wade, must have been wondering where their pilot had gone because the look-alike they had this week, seemed not to know how to fly… Onto Q2 and I’m pleased to say I remembered where the controls were and steered my lovely aeroplane into 6th place. The concern here was that we were still 2 seconds behind Kirby’s 1:10:76 which he posted in Q1. It may have been to do with the wind changing but we suspected an excess of power under his cowling had something to do with it. At the same time Mikey G and Matthias had suddenly found some form and power was becoming the topic of the week.

At the same time, we were all experiencing problems with the speed measuring system. We are restricted to 200 knots or 370 kmph at the start. This speed is displayed on an instrument on the instrument panel and is also displayed in the race tower… if you enter the track over 370 kmph you get a polite message from the race director asking you to “sod off” back to the airfield… or “terminate terminate terminate” in racing parlance. Now I have got a little bit of experience in following speed readouts but I couldn’t master this at all… my most extreme problem was gliding across the Danube at 20 feet with the throttle closed with the GPS speed readout showing a fixed 210 knots. It didn’t budge for ages… when eventually it did move it then proudly announced that we were flying at 176 knots. Now I know that GPS has a delay but this delay was by far and away the most extreme I have ever seen. Why? Well we don’t know… was it a combination of duff GPS signal and wind around the Citadel hill… whatever it was, none of us mastered it and hence the unlikely DQ’s of Sergei Rakhmanin, Glen Dell and Nicolas Ivanoff. Please don’t try and tell me that a World Aerobatic Champion, a 25,000 hour aeroplane and helicopter pilot and a French Aerobatic Champion can’t fly at a fixed speed. Our pilot debriefing, not surprisingly, was mostly about speed measurement… the upshot during the race was that few of us dared to enter the track anywhere near the limit speed and therefore probably lost time in the process (except for Hannes who cleverly entered at exactly 370 kmph in the Super 8 round) … watch this space as the sport needs to find a reliable and robust way to limit our speed at the start. By the way, the reason for the limit is to satisfy Civil Aviation Authority rules on crowd separation and the speed at which we fly… the faster you go, the more separation you need and most tracks don’t have the room for us to fly over 200 knots which then needs 200 meters clearance between planes and people.

As for the race… well, what a lovely day out for Team Bonhomme… I briefed myself just to have a nice day and try and fly three solid runs. I managed that and it rewarded us with a second place thanks to a small mistake by Hannes (giving him a 2 second penalty) and Kirby not quite replicating the blistering run he flew in Q1… and congratulations to Mikey G who flew steadily all day and took his first win. So amazingly we’re back at the top of the leader board by one point… not something I would have forecast in the middle of the week.

We’ve got some work to do because despite my atrocious flying, we still need more power… we’re looking into some tweaks before Porto which (fingers crossed) will help us go faster… And once again well done to Wade and Nigel who incredibly did not lose faith with me once during the week… Cheers!

The aeroplane spent the last few weeks at Wycombe Air Park where we gave it a thorough “check-up” in an attempt to squeeze some more performance out of it… “Doctor” Hammond worked his magic and last week we pronounced ourselves fit to go. I flew several times to get back in the swing of things and I was pleased that I had not forgotten how to fly the race plane…

Thursday last week was the planned day to ferry the aeroplane to Budapest… Nicolas Ivanoff in his Edge and Nigel Huxtable in the Team lamb MXS were going to fly alongside and we’d planned a gentle trundle across Europe in the sunshine to get to the fourth race destination of 2009. Sadly Mother Nature had different ideas and the weather scuppered our plans. These aeroplanes, unlike commercial airliners, are not designed to be flown in cloud… you have to fly “VFR” (visual flight rules) which basically means seeing the ground and staying away from fog, cloud and poor visibility (they do not have any instruments fitted for flying in cloud).

The forecast for Thursday was fairly good when I checked it at the beginning of the week so the plan was set… two flights of about two and a half hours were planned (a stop for fuel half way) and we’d be in Budapest for tea and biscuits in the evening… except for the fact that a huge area of rain, thunderstorms, fog, and low cloud marched it’s way right across our planned route. We initially got forced down and had to land at Wevelgem in Belgium (lovely lunch by the way at the airport restaurant)… so we took advantage of the fuel pumps, topped off with avgas (aviation gasoline) and after a two hour delay set off again. This time we were going to outsmart the weather and go south before heading east towards Germany… our plan lasted about an hour when we found a wall of water over France and ended up at a small, very quiet and peaceful airfield in the middle of nowhere which was even further west than Wevelgem (not good when you’re trying to go east!!!). Another rain delay (just like cricket) and off we went, now planning to get to Haguenau which is about as far as we could get now that we were running out of daylight.

We couldn’t even get there because the formation leader (me) successfully found the biggest thunderstorm in Europe right on our track. We tried a bit of probing to find a gap but alas, no luck and we ended up with another delay on the ground (at another deserted airfield and now 7pm). When that storm cleared we then hopped over to Metz Lorraine where we spent the night. Our groundspeed averaged out over the day was 26 knots… not very impressive for three racing aeroplanes.

The morning dawned to fog and mist, but we planned to wait it out whilst phoning ahead to see what was covered in fog and what wasn’t. I phoned Baden Baden airfield to check if the hills to their east were obscured with cloud… a very helpful guy answered the phone and I explained the situation… I asked “can you see the hills to the east?”… “NO” was the firm answer. Damn, I thought, we need to see the hills to get past… I asked if the cloud looked like it would hang around. “NO” he continued, “I cannot see the hills to the east because my office window faces west!”…

As it turned out, the mist and fog cleared and we hurtled towards Budapest where we arrived just in time to sample Peter Besenyei’s hospitality and his traditional pre-Air Race party… Thank you Peter and Tünde !

Today, Saturday, was a day of meetings and media commitments and we managed to squeeze in a quick flight over the airfield in the afternoon. Tomorrow is the main briefing day and a short flight to calibrate the telemetry equipment… We’re looking forward to first training on Monday…

 

The re-acquaintance with my original Edge was a pleasure and I spent a couple of afternoons roasting around getting my muscle memory topped up with Edge roll rates and feel. This Edge is set up as original and there is something very satisfying about flying an aeroplane that is as the designer intended. There is nothing wrong with my race Edge but it is set up for exactly that: racing, whereas this older Edge in standard trim is a joy to fly.

Meanwhile we’ve been playing with engines… we’ve yet to get the confirmed details but it seems that we’ve not been running with the power that we thought we had. Several components do not seem to have been tweaked as advertised and we’ve had to sort out various clearances which were costing us some power. Whilst we will still not have a huge increase of power for Budapest, at least we’ve tidied the engine up and know that it will run within tolerance. The engine was dyno tested yesterday morning and it is virtually identical to my last engine (which was tested last week) which is a little disheartening… I’m looking forward to the official report on what was actually inside my engine.

Budapest… the track looks like fun and could suit our aeroplane (emphasis on “could”)… and watch out for the incorrect knife-edge penalties because on each run of the course there are four knife-edge passes. The real challenge will be the bridge this year if we’re allowed to fly under it. There is a water level limit which will determine whether we start under or over the bridge… so the weather in Europe will be the deciding factor… lots of rain and a high running Danube and we will probably be over the bridge like last year. If we do go under the bridge we will have the added challenge of monitoring our speed as well as missing the bridge. Previously we didn’t have the start speed limit so we could concentrate 100% on the bridge and water but this year will be different. If you meet a pilot during race week, don’t be surprised if they have shifty eyes… it’ll just be habit from swapping views from the bridge to the speedometer to the water 100 times a second (which let’s face it… you’d do if you were going to squeeze between a bridge and a river by 3 metres either side at 370 kmph!)

 

It’s been a busy few weeks since Windsor…

Steve Jones and I have flown six displays as the Matadors in our Sukhoi 26’s… great fun and it is most enjoyable to fly formation aerobatics. We flew at Siverstone on the F1 race weekend and then flew at the Biggin Hill Air Fair. Whilst we were there, we were awarded the prize for the best team display which is very satisfying given the standards of the “competition”. I also flew the Mustang alongside Nigel Lamb in the Spitfire… again great fun. I was asked which I preferred, flying the Mustang or the Sukhoi? I enjoy both enormously so the answer has to be: the one I’m in at the time…

Last weekend saw Steve and I trundling up to Scotland to fly at “T in the Park”, a huge rock concert held at Balabo Park near Kinross… we landed at Glenrothes which is such a friendly and pleasant little airfield and enjoyed a traditional Scottish meal on the Friday night (I had the Chicken Dansak and Jonesey had the Korma)… and amazingly the weather was stunning and we enjoyed virtually cloud free flights up and back down again. The Saturday night found us in Norfolk for another event and then it was back home for a day off on Sunday…

My race Edge has just arrived in the UK and I’ll be looking at that tomorrow as well as flying my old Edge which has just completed its annual. I’ll be flying that for a couple of days to get some Edge handling under my belt so that come August, I won’t have completely forgotten how to fly one… we’ll be doing a little bit of work on the Engine in the next few weeks and some general tweaking on the aeroplane to get it into top shape for Budapest…

 

Windsor, Ontario… I’ve visited lots of parts of the world as a tourist, as an airline pilot, as an airshow pilot and as an air race pilot but I can safely say that I have never been made more welcome than we were in Windsor, Ontario. The bartenders (we very occasionally partake in light refreshment), the guys at Windsor airport, Sean and Dennis at Oldcastle Speed and Custom (who helped us with our exhaust update) and just about everyone we met were all unbelievably friendly… what a great place…

The week went something like this: I picked the aeroplane up from De Kalb airport where Len had left it after the ferry flight across the States. I spent the weekend with the Lutes at Casa De Aero… Rick let me fly his RV4 and I thoroughly enjoyed my 20 minutes of gentle aerobatics overhead the airfield, a great antidote to the fast and furious racing which would follow.

 

I arrived in Windsor and Wade worked his magic in getting our new exhaust system fitted in time. We’ve now got a “six into two” system which both Ivanoff and Arch have had for a while in an attempt to squeeze more power from the engine. Bad news for Peter Besenyei in the middle of the week as his had an engine failure on the way to a photo flight at Niagra Falls. He lost oil pressure and after an attempt to make it towards the nearest airfield, his engine seized and he was forced to land in a newly sown field. All worked beautifully until the last 20 mph when the wheels dug into the soft earth and the aeroplane turned over. Out of all of this bad luck was a healthy dose of good luck as Peter was able to crawl out with just a few bumps and scratches. Bad luck also followed for Yoshi as his wing suffered some damage after a pylon strike. Normally there is nothing more than some abrasion but on this occasion some delamination was suspected and as a precaution his aircraft was grounded. I reminded our team on the Saturday that it was the 13th and there were now 13 pilots remaining in the race, we’d had two grounded aeroplanes and did things always happen in threes? I’m not normally superstitious but it did make me wonder…

 

Kirby Chambliss turned up with a new engine which failed the technical test. Rumours of illegal pistons followed but he was allowed to fly in the training sessions with this engine to avoid going into the race with no track time. The pistons were all changed on Friday night (an all nighter for Jason, his technician). His blistering times on the Thursday and Friday would surely slow him down but alas no… there was clearly something else creating power as he collected the one point on qualifying day. For us it was frustrating but at least the point didn’t go to Arch or Ivanoff.

 

As for race day… it seemed to go quite well! I am pleased to say that my times got better as the day progressed; I flew a little too aggressively in the Top 12 session but managed to calm down enough to win both the Super 8 stage and the Final Four. The other three guys all collected a 2 second penalty but Hannes was the only one with a faster net time. I’m pleased to say that Mr Chambliss could not replicate the fast times from the day before. As for Nicolas Ivanoff, he collected four seconds of penalties in the Top 12 round which put him 9th. The press were suggesting it is now a two horse race… how wonderfully naïve! As we have seen before, lots can happen in this series and I reckon it is still wide open. Mathematically, any one of the fifteen pilots can still win the Championship.

 

Roll on Budapest…

The weekend of display flying at Southend was most entertaining… the sun shone and the crowds turned out in force and Mr Jones and I thoroughly enjoyed some formation flying over the beach. Our Sunday evening included a very civilized refreshment in Leigh-on-Sea. The fun continued during the week with some formation flying training in a pair of Mk IX Spitfires from Duxford. I know, I know , I know, I’m a lucky sod… and the view of a Spitfire over my shoulder half way round a loop brings a smile to my face every time I think about it… The weekend was spent doing what England does best… a summer weekend which included boating on the Cam, barbeques, football in the park and generally chilling out (and the sun shone for four days in a row).

Len delivered the Edge to Chicago yesterday and I’ll be there later in the week to pick it up… I’m looking forward to the race in Windsor and whilst we’ll miss Detroit, it’ll be nice to see the Ontario side of the river. The track is almost a mirror image of last year’s track with the odd tweak here and there. At the moment the quaddro will not include a reversal of turn after the 270… so in the first quad, it’ll be right knife, followed  by a left turn and then left knife through the quad. This’ll mean we have to be extremely careful with descent rates going back to the gate. With the turn reversal as we’ve had so far, you have an ideal opportunity to raise the nose and stop any descent you may have had after the turn… not the case in Windsor.

Birds will no doubt be a problem again as they were last year… if anyone does hit a bird, I don’t think they’ll be carrying on as Hannes did in San Diego. The thought of a hole in your tail should be enough to deter most folks from pulling 8g! Other than that I predict the judges will be getting more strict with any type of dangerous flying…

See you there…

Team Bonhomme have been busy again… and it’s been a varied week of activity. Wade and Jim have been busy with further weight reduction as well as sorting out a cylinder that was misbehaving. That was sent off to be sorted and we’re confident that it’ll be 100% fit for Windsor. The aeroplane is now in Phoenix, ferried there yesterday in the skillful hands of Len Rulason (ex Steve Jones engineer and all round good guy. Thanks also to Mike Larkin for the “ferry pilot ferrying” who took Len to Mojave in his Lancair Legacy… by the way guys, the info on which plane, Edge or Lancair that got back to Chandler first is confidential!) From Phoenix, Len will ferry the aeroplane north east to get it closer to Windsor… We’ll be mustering once again at Casa de Aero, home of Rick and Amy Lutes, who live just west of Chicago… we’ll do some final tweaks on the aeroplane there before we set of for Windsor for round three. We might even have a beer…

 Jim and some other very clever people at Mojave have also been hatching some plans for the future… I won’t say what here but it’s exciting stuff… Meanwhile in the UK we have some other folks working on a couple of projects for the future… I’m glad I only have to fly the thing because there are some seriously intelligent engineers out there who are very keen to make aeroplanes go faster…

My back is now back in action and I flew the Sukhoi 26 two days ago as a warm up before our displays at the weekend (Southend on Sea)… the Sukhoi is not as fast as an Edge but it is an awesome aeroplane to fly. Nothing beats a bit of gyrating and tumbling around the Cambridgeshire countryside on a sunny afternoon… and a weekend of formation aerobatics should be the perfect antidote to the upcoming week of fast and furious racing in Windsor.

 And once again, I must mention a huge THANKS to all the folks at Mojave who’ve looked after us so well… from board and lodging to technical wizardry, hangarage, structural calculations, welding, fabric work, painting, carbon fibre repairs, engine work, canopy construction, and just about any other skill you could care to mention (and consumption of tequila, but that’s enough on that subject!), Team Bonhomme have been looked after royally… We’ll miss our visits to a very special place…

 

Qualifying day… We managed first place in Q1 and for a moment I thought we might have done enough to clinch the one point… as the marine layer threatened the track for the start of Q2 and a layer of low cloud rolled in, I was in a small very sporting way hoping that Q2 would be cancelled… alas no and despite the weather the race committee seemed determined to push on. In Q2 Hannes Arch opened his throttle and got the all important one point. Also up there for the first time was Mr Besenyei who was flying his MXS with style. We finished the qualifying in second… I had a bit of a twinge in my back in Q1 which niggled away all weekend but with some expert help, it’ll be super fit for Windsor.

Onto race day… as we were flying a tight turn to the start gate during Q day and race day, the race committee had decided not to penalize for more than 200 kts at the start gate. This was because it was deemed that the gps signal could not be relied upon after such a tight turn. An allowance was made for overall time between gate 1 and chicane gate 3 to make sure there were no gross violations of start speed… some pilots were quicker to pick up on the advantage that this could bring and the naked eye could pick up some quite fast start speeds… the fact that Alex Maclean and Kirby Chambliss got DQ’d for over G in the first turn backs up this observation…

I was first in the Top 12, fell to third in the Super 8 behind Hannes and Nicolas and then got second behind Nicolas in the final. Hannes got a two second penalty for incorrect knife flight in gate 5… probably something to do with hitting a pelican through gate 4. It put a huge hole in his tail plane but did not deter him from flying the rest of the track… we discussed the decision  afterwards, yes, we all want to win but at what cost? The structure of his tail plane was severely compromised and fortunately survived the remainder of the track at 8-9g and up to 200 kts… a whily old engineer said to me once and it is superb advice: you can only operate a defective aircraft if you know exactly what is wrong and know the implications of doing so. Hannes said he heard a huge bang… I know it is easy to say it after the event but I’m sure if Hannes knew then what he knows now about his tail, perhaps he would not have carried on… It also highlights the importance of the race committee monitoring the track as well as the aeroplane during the race. Can you see a sparrow at the end of your garden? … you’d think someone would be able to see a pelican in a racetrack… (London and sea gulls springs to mind)

We mustn’t forget that despite the birdstrike, Hannes still flew an astonishingly fast round… he’s got something under his bonnet and we’d love to know what…

Vive La France! Well done to Team Ivanoff for their superb win… Nicolas proved that he and his machine can win, something we’ve known for a while, but it just took time to find the right machine. I think we’ll see lots more of Nicolas this year… and good for Peter too, and that’s with an MXS and not his new Hungarian built racer… will it be ready this year?

We’re still up there with the main players and we’ve got some tweaks planned for the three weeks between now and Windsor… roll on round three…

 

Today we experienced the meteorological condition known as the marine layer… a low lying layer of cloud or fog that rolls in from the ocean. Our morning training session was delayed, then delayed again and then cancelled before the afternoon session was delayed twice and then cancelled too. Frustrating as the weather at our base airfield was blue sky and 25c whilst at the track it wobbled around a 500 foot cloud base.

My day today started with a live TV interview on the waterside next to the track at 7am. The media commitment being involved in the Air Race is huge. Huge because there is a lot of work that goes into it… and huge because if there was no media, there would be no viewers and if there are no viewers, there would be no sponsors and guess what? No sponsors, no Air Race… Like most modern sports, this is the balance between the sport and the coverage that it demands. Last year the Air Race commanded hundreds of millions of TV viewers and this year there will be more. How does that affect an Air Race pilot? It’s a constant balance between satisfying media requests and keeping your mind on the job… when you’re flying at 30 feet and 230 mph, a small mistake could cost you dearly (and I’m not talking about being third instead of second)… the key is to prioritise and make sure that your plan for the race is complete before you get distracted. I’m not entirely sure that some folks know what we’re about. Can you compare the stress between the possibility of a camera running out of tape or the risk of hitting the ground at 200 mph?

 

Tomorrow is qualifying day… one point up for grabs and as we’ve seen in the past, points make prizes… We’ll be there…

 

What a great spot for an air race… we’re back in San Diego and Team Bonhomme arrived yesterday ready for racing.

We’ve saved a little bit of weight since we got back from Abu Dhabi. Wade, Jim and Tex worked hard on the plane and we’re all set.

 The track here is the same as last year… after the start gate it’s a slight right turn into the chicane followed by a right into gate 3 and then a hard left turn into 4 before a long stretch to a right turning quaddro and then a right turn to the last gate… there are two laps of the course and the fun here will be the turn in to gate 4 and the turn into the last gate… both easy to do with a relaxed turn but more challenging to turn in tight to save time. Another fun challenge will be the start speed because I don’t think we’ll have the luxury of a straight run in here (there’s a nuclear powered aircraft carrier in the way!)… so watch out for some track time being thrown away as pilots try and get up to 200 kts without exceeding it before the start gate… roll on race day!

 

We’ve taken the decision to do some pre San Diego work on the aeroplane which is a combination of routine maintenance and some exploratory work on weight reduction. We’ve looked into the weight issue and we’ve identified some areas for improvement. Most of the weight increase we have seen has been due to cabling, wiring and various other small increases which have all added up since the aeroplane was first made. A tiny amount of the weight has been due to our winter improvements but that weight is more than negated by the huge speed gains that we achieved after our Mojave visit. I won’t mention too many more details here but we’re looking forward to the San Diego race… and we’d like to once again thank Nemesis Air Racing for their fine work over the winter…

The weight question seems to have been left open… and several more have cropped up. During the race, the lead was passed between Team Bonhomme, Nicolas Ivanoff and Hannes Arch. Team Bonhomme led in the Top 12, with Nicolas taking the Super 8 stage… then after a poor Super 8 run Hannes Arch pulls out a 1.24.60… the fastest run of the day and unbelievably quicker than anything he had done all week. Rather nice for the Abu Dhabi sponsored pilot to win “at home”…

We’re running the aeroplane/pilot combination about 45 kgs heavier than the winning aeroplane so we know our streamlining works, we’ve got now to get the weight down. Wade and Jim are going to be putting the aeroplane through the gym next week and also after San Diego and I’ll be doing the same! And if you don’t think 45 kgs is much, imagine it at 10G… it’ll be 450 kgs or 5 passengers, a huge penalty…

The other big question this week was the track tactics around gate 3. It became evident that you could just fly through gate 3 with no attempt to be level and you’d gain about 2 seconds (which is the penalty for not being level in the gate). So what to do? Go wider to get level in the gate, no penalty but about 2 seconds more track time… or just fly through in a turn, 2 seconds quicker but comes with a 2 second penalty? Personally I reckoned on going for the clean run (somehow not cricket to deliberately get a penalty) but it was clear that the French and one of the Americans were early to try the tactic (neither big cricketing nations). The advantage of the “fly through” was that it reduced the chance of a pylon hit… it also highlighted that if you fly through high AND not wings level, you still only get a 2 second penalty. I think that rule will change in the not-too-distant future.

Big thanks must got to Wade and Jim for the technical support this week and to Nigel who as usual has been super efficient at running the Team (he makes a good cup of tea too). Also HUGE THANKS to Pete Waters (White Waltham folks will know Pete/Yogi from his instructing days there) for his invaluable assistance which helped the Team to 2nd place. Without the intelligence gathering from Pete, we’d have had a much more difficult week.

Other news: I wore the new AutoFlug G Race Suit (GRS) this week. It is a G suit that works on the water rod principle… the suit is worn tight and when G onset occurs, the water flows to constrict your suit even more in the lower leg and torso. To start with, I did not like it at all… I found it far too tight and extremely hot (cockpit temperatures of 45c did not help)… however after a bit of tweaking and adjusting… and getting used to wearing a 7 kg flying suit, I now actually quite like it. It is not a magic suit in terms of G protection but it helps by about 1.5 to 2 G, very useful when you’re trying to judge flying through a 10 meter wide gate at 30 feet after a prolonged 8 G turn. The suit is worn by some of the Eurofighter pilots in Europe and is tailored for their requirements which are not the same as ours. Two I can think of immediately are sitting position and cockpit climate control. I’m sure though that with development the suit is here to stay, as it does work well (it also means I don’t have to grunt quite so much whilst on the TV!). It’s already been written into the rules as a required piece of equipment which means if you don’t wear it, you have to carry 6.5 kgs of ballast.

Roll on San Diego for a good fair race… then perhaps some cricket?

Air Racing… aerodynamics or weight, discuss...

This is the topic this week in Abu Dhabi… we know there would be lots to talk about here but nobody foresaw the main question… in Team Bonhomme we’ve concentrated on making a slippery aeroplane which doesn’t hurt or insult the air through which it passes. Other teams have reduced weight so that their respective engines and wings can accelerate quickly after a turn or deceleration… and I know you’re now wondering which will work? Can I tell you on Saturday evening after the race? This is a sweeping generalisation but the MXS teams have gone for weight reduction and the Edge teams have tried to sort out drag… except for Hannes Arch who clearly has done nothing aerodynamically but is rumoured to be fairly light (looks like he could do with a pudding or two to me!)

The heavier the aeroplane, the more drag you’ll have for a given speed, especially under G during turns (when the wing has to lift more at a given speed, it does that at a higher angle of attack hence more drag)… but try putting your hand flat against the airflow whilst driving in the car (disclaimer… I didn’t say whilst oncoming cars approach, or hedges for that matter)… there is a lot of drag even at 30mph… imagine an inefficient aeroplane at 230 mph… lots of drag… and that’ll slow you down…

Our aeroplane was weighed by the Technical Director two days ago and has put on a bit of weight but clearly at the same time has become extremely clean (low drag)… we’re all itching to get into the track to find out which will work… and that’ll depend a lot on the track. Turning tracks probably favour the light aeroplanes and the straight/river tracks might favour the streamlined aeroplanes. Tomorrow, Wednesday 15th, sees the first training session on the race track, reliable lap times probably won’t be available until after training 3 which is on Thursday… Watch this space!

I know I’m in Abu Dhabi because it’s lovely and warm. 35 degrees C to be precise… which is fine when you’re on the beach but a trifle warm when you’re in a Nomex flying suit, flying under the sun, pulling 10 g to see how your post winter G tolerance is going. The good news for fans of Team Bonhomme is that everything is going just fine. We were concerned about temperature but the aeroplane is behaving beautifully despite the heat. We have a few minor tweaks to make and should be ready for the training camp on Sunday.

As this is the first race of a new season, we all have the opportunity to fly in a track for two days prior to the race proper next week. This is a track set up in the desert which is different from the race track for Abu Dhabi. It’ll be a great chance to set the aeroplane up and get my eye in for the pylons.

The big news here is finding out what the other teams have been up to over the winter… LOTS! We’re all parked in one big hangar at Al Bateen airfield before we relocate to the race airport next week, so great news for “tweak spotting”. Chambliss has gone for a “smiley” cowling inlet. It’s looks good for cooling but we’re not sure about drag reduction. Goulian has added about two inches to his wing leading edge on the outboard 40%. I’m interested to see what it does… I’m guessing that it’s for improved turning radius but will it slow him down? There are a host of other mods being tried out… some you can see, some you can’t. Nigel Lamb is strolling around with an air of confidence… we think it’s engine related but the track will tell us if it’s worked. As for Hannes Arch… strangely, he is in a hangar of his own away from all of us. We can’t help feeling it’s a bit strange, we all have technical tweaks to hide but none of us have been given the opportunity of our own hangar. Make your own minds up but I don’t get it…

So, more flying this afternoon followed by meeting up with Steve Jones later on this evening. He’s here to help Yoshi Muroya and Matt Hall get their feet under the table with the racing as well as advising the media on technical issues. Jim Reed, who helped us in Mojave, will also be here later to assist Wade with general mods and adjustments to the aeroplane. Roll on the racing!

 

SORRY NO PICTURES YET AS WE ARE OPERATING FROM A MILITARY BASE.

The fun is about to start! We assemble the aeroplane in Abu Dhabi next week (8th April) and then have a couple of days of test flying before two days of training in a special training track over the desert. It’ll be good see how the aeroplane flies in track conditions but the real fun will be on the 15th and 16th when we get to fly in the actual race track for Abu Dhabi.

So what have we been up to over the winter? We’ve been busy… more to the point, Wade has been REALLY busy. Non-stop since January, he’s worked his socks off. We’ve been based with Jon and Patricia Sharp and their team at Nemesis Air Racing and we’ve benefited from their huge knowledge and experience as well as a lot of hard work. The focus was on streamlining and by heck, we’ve made the aeroplane go much faster. Thank You Nemesis!

We’ve gently tweaked the engine and we’ve also dabbled with weight saving… in testing before we left the States we saw significant improvements in performance… let’s hope we’re ahead of the other teams!

Thanks also to Jim Reed of Mojave who has been a huge help with the work, he’ll be coming to Abu Dhabi with us to help with the engineering during race week… his experience is going to be valuable. And thanks also to Jeff and Beth Holle, for all the support with planes and hospitality! And of course the army of other guys at Mojave who’ve all had a part to play in making race plane 55 go much faster. Let’s hope I can point it in the right direction!

We’ve got a new format this year and I’m pleased. It’s simply 15 to 12 to 8 to 4… the format goes like this: Q day, 15 fly and the top 10 qualify for race day. Race day, the bottom 5 from Q day fly and the top 2 from this group join the top 10, this makes 12, they race again and the top 8 go through. They race and the fastest 4 go through for a final flight of 4 and the fastest wins. It’s so wonderfully simple and you can forget the tactics and sandbagging in early rounds of last year, you now have to fly fast all the time. I’m sure we’ll see more mistakes as pilots will be pushing harder right from the start…

New rules this year: 200 knots groundspeed maximum at the start (370 kmph). This is to satisfy the Aviation Authority rules about crowdline distance. What does it mean for us?... it means we have to be extremely careful as a speed exceedance means a DQ. Other rule changes see the G limit of 12 being applied with no allowance. Last year we were allowed a 0.6 second over-G to allow for instrument errors but the instruments are deemed now to be super-accurate and they’ve dropped the allowance. So 12.1 G for 0.1 second and you’re off back to the hangar for an interview with the race director without tea and biscuits… and some pretty stern comments from your team. I’m hoping that with the lower speed limit it’ll be near impossible to get anywhere near 12 G but care is required!!!

Last but certainly not least, thanks to Team 55 coordinator Nigel who as usual has been rushing around in the background making sure that Wade doesn’t run out of parts, I don’t forget my brain and the day-to-day running of a Team gets completed efficiently… we’re all looking forward to a gentle refreshing pre-season team meeting at the Irish HQ a week before the race in Abu Dhabi!

So the race is on, and I’m pretty sure we’re ready… we’ll keep you posted here and thank you for your support!

 

"As the Air Race has become more competitive so has the secrecy surrounding Teams' modifications during the closed season. Without wanting to give anything away, and despite the extremely tight deadline and grueling hours put in by Wade and our team, the improvements have exceeded our expectations."

"I have completed all the necessary test flights and am quietly confident that the results will “bear fruit”. In fact I can't wait to see what race plane 55 can do in the track and to see what modifications the other teams have come up with. As we saw last year, anything can happen and Abu Dhabi once again will be a treat for the technically minded fans"

To coincide with the launch of our new look website we are posting exclusive first look pictures of our race aircraft for 2009.  (For our loyal fans see if you can note the visible changes from 2008 and for our competition "you can’t see half of them chaps")