Windsor, June 4, 2010
Regrettably and with much disappointment, Team Muroya has been forced to withdraw from the Windsor round of the Red Bull Air Race Championship 2010.
During a practice session overhead Windsor Airport, a problem developed with the cockpit canopy which led to irreparable damage to it. Unfortunately the canopy is a custom item and a replacement is not readily available.
The biggest disappointment for the team is that the plane had been worked on for 2 weeks prior to arriving in Windsor to improve the engine and overall performance. These changes had shown to be effective during practice and the plane was performing well.
It will take approximately three weeks to reproduce a new canopy so a decision was taken to accept Team Arch’s offer to use their race plane from last year for the Windsor and New York rounds. However this aircraft was located in Oklahoma at the Zivko Edge factory and needed to be assembled including mounting the engine and various other components.
Team Muroya made a huge effort to get to the Zivko factory and prepare the plane in the short time available. Pilot Yoshi Muroya, Technician Takashi Nishimura and TC Rob Fry worked long hours for 2 days with a deadline of 3pm local time in order that Yoshi could ferry to Windsor before sunset on June 3rd. Unfortunately, although the plane was assembled and ready to go a problem was discovered with the electrical system and the engine could not be started as the time limit went by.
You can see Yoshi's Interview just after the retirement for the Windsor round here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUwEIp5BMTk
Posted by Team coordinator Robert Fry
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