Windsor here we come!

Photos: Taro Imahara/TIPP http://tipp.sakura.ne.jp/

Pre Windsor report

Soooo, what is Team Muroya up to between races......

Race plane 31 is at a top secret US location (rumoured to be area 88 close to area 51) undergoing massive alterations to make it as streamlined as a Ferrari and as light as a feather. In the first week of June, Team Coordinator Robert will ferry it from area 88 to Windsor. It is believed it will be so fast, it will only take 3 hours for the trip!

Meanwhile, in the real world, pilot Yoshi has been keeping his hand in flying an air show at the Kanoya Maritime Self Defense Force Base in Kyushu Japan. Yoshi’s air show flying in Japan is done in an Extra 300S in Red Bull colours. This was his first opportunity to fly in front of his local fans since the start of the Red Bull Air Race World Championship 2009 season and as can be seen from the attached photos they really appreciated it.

Kanoya, being a MSDF base, has a large fleet of PC3 Orions that regularly patrol the Japan sea and Japan’s coastal territories. Each year though they put on a very energetic formation routine probably never seen in other parts of the World in such large aircraft. Their finale is the 4 ship break you see in the photos.

Red Bull Air Race San Diego 7

Photos:Taro IMAHARA/TIPP

May 10, 17:00

Its all over for this leg of the series. A blinding quick time in the final saw Nicolas Ivanoff take the Red Bull Air Race in San Diego 09. Paul Bonhomme hung in for second place and Hannes Arch pulled a penalty in the Quadro while pushing the radius of the turn into it very tight. Bad luck for Hannes, also having a bird strike during his run that leg a rather large hole in his horizontal stabilizer!

Team Muroya had a clean (no penalties for the first time YEAH) run in the wild card round that put us into the final 12. The final 12 run was not so good. Looks like we need more time in the track before we can start pushing the times too much! All in all though an improvement that saw us move up 2 places on the hanger pecking order for Windsor and our first championship point YEAH!. We are taking it step by step. Congratulations to Matt Hall for his solid performance again as top Rookie!

Red Bull Air Race San Diego 6

San Diego 19:00

Well, Qualifying is over and we are in lucky 13th position again! Our first run we had a good time through the track but picked up 2 penalties equaling 4 seconds. 1st penalty was on the chicane when we popped up a little high on the middle pylon. 2nd penalty we were a little high coming out of the Quadro.

The second qualifying run was run in conditions with a low ceiling. Our time improved a little but we ran a little high coming out of the chicane and copped another 2 second penalty. Next, through the start finish line we clipped the inside pylon for a total of 8secs.

Without the penalties we could be in amongst the 6th to 8th placers. We are looking for a clean run in the wild card flight to get another shot at the first 12!

Red Bull Air Race San Diego 5

Unfortunately all practice sessions in the race box were cancelled due to low clouds in the area. It was very frustrating for all the teams because the weather at the TRW Brown Field was beautiful!

After the final cancellation notice was given at 16:00, some of the pilots including Yoshi went for training flights overhead the TRW.

So, no more practice time in the Race track. Tomorrow it is straight into the Qualification rounds. The course has been the same configuration in San Diego for the last 3 years so it will be a big advantage for the veteran competitors and the lack of box time here will make it difficult for the Rookies!

Training Flight

Red Bull Air Race San Diego 4

13:00 May 8
Flying delayed all morning due to low cloud over the race area. 3rd training is cancelled. Waiting for weather to clear for training 4 to start first take off scheduled for 14:25

Red Bull Air Race San Diego 3

May 7

Today was the first day of practice "in the box". Due to a Padres day baseball game at Petco stadium (very close to the shoreline where the Red Bull Air Race course is set) we weren't able to fly during game time so one flight was made during the morning and then we had to wait until late in the afternoon for the second practice. Yoshi's flight time was around 18:00 and the low sun made it difficult for the later pilots on the flight list. We had a good run and came in 9th for the second practice session. This made for a long day with team briefing at the TRW at 0745 and getting back to the Hotel at 20:30.

Tomorrow we will post a video of todays flight on utube. Three more practice flights tomorrow and the last chance to "learn" the best lines around the course before qualifying on Saturday!

Red Bull Air Race San Diego 2

May 6th

The TRW (temporary runway) was opened this morning by Red Bull Air Race GMBH CEO Bernd Loidl with all the race pilots and media in attendance. Bernd was presented with the recently received Emmy award for excellence in TV programming.

see: http://www.redbullairrace.com/news

Red Bull Air Race San Diego 1

San Diego May 5

Team Coordinator Robert arrived in San Diego on May 1st from New Zealand and Technician Takashi Nishimura the same day from Riverside CA.

On May 2nd we assembled most of race plane 31 working side by side with the other teams assembling there planes. When we looked in the hanger we found that 4 planes were missing. 4 days after we left from Abu Dhabi, the whole of the Red Bull Air Race equipment had arrived in San Diego. All 15 race planes, 1 media plane 1 helicopter and all the portable hangers, control towers, the High Flyers building and all the other equipment had been put in 2 Boeing 747 jumbo jets and transported to San Diego.

The 4 missing planes were Bonhomme, Gulian, Chambliss and Mangold. All were assembled on arrival by their teams and flown out to various places in the USA for modification before the San Diego races. Bonhomie's plane went to Mojave for more work by the Scaled Composites and Nemesis Racing team. The objective was to reduce the weight of the plane somehow. Gulian's plane went to Oregon to remove the wing "cuffs" that proved to be slow in Abu Dhabi. The other 2 we are not sure where they went and what modifications were done.

For team Muroya, we have found some equipment on the plane that we didn't really need so we spent some time removing these and reduced the weight by about 1 kg.

On May 3 Yoshi arrived from Japan and in the late afternoon made a test flight. May 4th some more adjustments made to the plane and another test flight. After the experience from Abu Dhabi Yoshi has moved the seat to a lower position and laid the seat back at more of an angle to make it more comfortable for flying the Red Bull Race course. Today May 5th we had another test flight. So far all flights have been overhead the Temporary Runway located at Brown Field airport. From tomorrow, the real practice in the race area starts with a calibration flight overhead the race course. The calibration flight is to test the TV and Data telemetry systems that are now back on board the planes. These systems allow the position speed and attitude of the planes to be broadcast live to the ground together with the live camera images from the cockpit camera and tail camera.

Also today, the Team coordinators had a briefing on the care of the special G-RS racing G suits. Part of the TC job is to take the G suit back to the Hotel after each championship round and WASH it! Glamorous job! These new G suits have 4 columns of water called "fluid muscles" that are contained in tubes that run vertically down the length of the suit, 2 at the front and 2 at the back. So, prior to washing, the water tubes need to be removed. The system works by having a tight fitting body suit with the fluid columns in it. When the aircraft experiences the on onset of high G forces, the fluid flows down the columns and exerts more pressure on the legs and lower body thereby restricting the flow of blood there and increasing the pilots resistance to high G forces. Each suit weighs about 6.5 kgs. If he pilot elects not to use his G suit, he must carry a lead weight of 6.5kg on the seat instead.

http://www.redbullairrace.com/news.php?id=2267&lang=en

Pictures show the fluid columns that are in inserted into special cloth tubes that run the length of the suit.

Team Muroya is looking forward to improving our performance in the races in San Diego with more experience in the track. We are planning some major improvements to our race plane between San Diego and Windsor to help put us closer in aircraft performance to the top teams. From our research prior to purchasing the Edge 540, we knew our plane would be down slightly on performance compared to the top teams but have now found a way to get some vital improvements incorporated in our machine earlier than we had originally planned.

Watch for some exciting racing from Team Muroya in the coming championship rounds!