Redbull at it again

[Adam the Akrodude]

I'm sure there were lots of i's and t's crossed and dotted. Would not call Red Bull a rogue outfit. Lot's of $$$$ at stake for cowboy shenanigans.
Looks great.

I'm not suggesting that Red Bull is a "rogue" outfit, but I do think there is a culture of major risk taking "Extreme" sport associated with Red Bull. This culture will invariably result in much reduced safety margins. There is a phenomenon in aviation called the Rogue pilot. Ray hit on this with that high time B-52 pilot that speared that BUFF into the ground. Now, I'm not suggesting that either Paul Bonhomme or his partner are rogue pilots, but this phenomenon occurs generally with pilots with pretty healthy egos and can be very experienced - so experienced that they reduce their safety margins to nothing.

This stunt had stuff all room for error. The more I think about it, the less I'm impressed. I've been in a aerobatic aeroplane being flown by a highly experienced instructor who had his rogue moments. Once in a Pitts and formation with a Zlin-242, he was showing off as to how close we could get. Well, we got too close and hit the wing tip votice and rolled towards the Zlin - kind of a soiling the pants moment! Last time I flew with him he decided to show me a vertical snap roll in the Pitts just above the runway at Tooradin. He dove the Pitts beyond VNE at the ground, levelled out just above the runway and pulled into the vertical and did two snap rolls. So there we are about 600-700 feet above the runway with zero speed. He stall turned and pulled out just above the runway. That was it for me with this guy. It was all about showing off in front of others. I have very luckily survived three rogue pilots, so I guess I'm a little sensitive to flying "stunts". Yes these guys did it in what must have been controlled and ideal conditions. Who will try it next and kill themselves or others?

They are in the record book now I guess.

[tor lives]

kind of a soiling the pants moment!

And here is another!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjU4cWDRwKI
This is how quickly things can go wrong!!
A hair's width between Flying and Dying!!!
TOR

[tor lives]

I guess I'm a little sensitive to flying "stunts".

As am I!!!
When you are knee-deep in 707 wreckage gathered and piled in a hanger, looking for personal effects of dead squadron mates that didn't need to be dead, ya get like that!!!
TOR

[Nicolas_Fantich]

Do we all remember how Col Paye met his unfortunate end ?

[Nicolas_Fantich]

Did we pay attention to the fact that these two pilots have been flying together as a pair for 17 years ? I think that says just a wee little bit for how they regard one another, trust each other, know each other - IN THE AIR ! Tell me how many civilian or military aircrew fly together continuously for 17 years ? Must be close to zippo.............ZERO !

Are you guys so naive and condescending to imagine that these two pilots didn't attempt to assess the risks of doing this and have a 'knock it off' point established if the myriad of parameters/conditions which this successful operation was dependent upon, fell outside of the established limits ?

Typical understated English gentlemen when you hear their post-op summing up of their experience. Did you hear any ball-busting 'yahooing' calls over the radio when they exited the hangar. The only call is to pull up after exit, and then a landing runway call.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=125gutRd8rk

No fuss, no bullshit !

Thinking of the RAAF 707 and USAF B-52 & C-17 accidents, it is doubtful that the pilots in command on the fateful day had adequate experience in operating their respect aircraft at or beyond the safe limits published in the respective approved flight manuals. The only personnel who should EVEN be attempting the kinds of manoeuvres that were observed/understood to have been performed on those days are pilots with the skills to do so. This is usually test pilots, who come to the game with a very broad range of experience and experiences, well beyond that of most line pilots in both civilian and military fields.

[Nicolas_Fantich]

Here's a bit more on the staging of the exercise:

http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/motorsport ... g-insights

http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/motorsport ... clip-video

http://www.redbull.com/uk/en/motorsport ... ng-science

Wet your pants, Adam

[tor lives]

Are you guys so naive and condescending to imagine that these two pilots didn't attempt to assess the risks .

No Nicolas....we are just pragmatic realists based upon years of experience in and around aviation. As said elsewhere, justification and rationale is fine.........right up to the bit where it all goes horribly wrong!!!!!. As Adam has pointed out, these guys successfully pulled of this stunt and got themselves into the record books in the process.....Well Done!!!!!, but what about the next attempt, or the one after, etc, etc. The bar continually raises while the safety margins reduce.
TOR

[Tony P]

I think Nic has nailed it. Lumping the red bull stunt with all the other incidents is outright demeaning. There was no wind, no wild control inputs. Just straight and level happily sitting in ground effect. The civil aviation authority was also overseeing the events. Good on them.

[Adam the Akrodude]

Hi Nicolas

Responses to your post

Did we pay attention to the fact that these two pilots have been flying together as a pair for 17 years ? I think that says just a wee little bit for how they regard one another, trust each other, know each other - IN THE AIR ! Tell me how many civilian or military aircrew fly together continuously for 17 years ? Must be close to zippo.............ZERO !

They haven't been flying through hangars together for 17 years

Are you guys so naive and condescending to imagine that these two pilots didn't attempt to assess the risks of doing this and have a 'knock it off' point established if the myriad of parameters/conditions which this successful operation was dependent upon, fell outside of the established limits ?

Naïve and condescending - Wow! Of course I understand that there was risk analysis and a work up done on this "stunt". FFS, I'm not saying I'm an expert at all, but I know a little to understand this. Did you note several exclamation marks in Steve Jones's discussion on this stunt?

And any crisis you have within that 200 metres, you have to go through the hangar and sort it out on the other side!”

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that!


This tells me that of course they were both intimately aware of the very high risk of this flight - of course they were. As Donald Rumsfeld once said " there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns). A fecking pigeon could have flown out from somewhere and smacked into a canopy or damaged the prop, what effect of the interaction of the tip vortices and the boundary layer as two aeroplanes flew in formation through the hangar for the first time - as I said, unknown unknowns. At some point, they were test pilots when for the first time they flew together through the hangar in formation.

Hangars aren't designed for the likelihood of two aeroplanes flying through them in formation! My best wild arse guess is that these guys were happy enough that this exercise was over.

Typical understated English gentlemen when you hear their post-op summing up of their experience. Did you hear any ball-busting 'yahooing' calls over the radio when they exited the hangar. The only call is to pull up after exit, and then a landing runway call.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=125gutRd8rk

No fuss, no bullshit !

No fuss, no bullshit - oh, all good then. It's still my opinion this was a bullshit stunt. If a ECG was hooked up to their hearts, we would have seen that they were no doubt racing like crazy. From my time flying competition aerobatics, it's like having a 2" fire hose pumping adrenaline straight into your heart - it's highly addictive. The point I've been trying to make is, what's next - a four ship through a hangar, two aeroplanes coming in from different directions, inverted formation through a hangar, etc, etc, etc. My fear is others will try this - even junior pilots trying to emulate this stunt in a Decathalon or Pitts somewhere with tragic results. I'm not a fan of this "Barnstorming" shit - it's undisciplined bullshit and frankly I didn't think someone like Paul Bonhomme would go in for these sort of antics. I question whether the commercial requirements of being associated with Red Bull and their culture of doing extreme shit has pushed them to doing this. The more and more I think about this, the less and less I like it. A lot of this stems from the air show culture in USA where there is a requirement to do more and more extreme shit at air shows. This culture has killed many air show aerobatic pilots. Let's face it, a good 80% of the "great unwashed" at a air show want to see a crash in any case.

Thinking of the RAAF 707 and USAF B-52 & C-17 accidents, it is doubtful that the pilots in command on the fateful day had adequate experience in operating their respect aircraft at or beyond the safe limits published in the respective approved flight manuals. The only personnel who should EVEN be attempting the kinds of manoeuvres that were observed/understood to have been performed on those days are pilots with the skills to do so. This is usually test pilots, who come to the game with a very broad range of experience and experiences, well beyond that of most line pilots in both civilian and military fields.

Been some time since I read the details on the RAAF 707 crash. From memory there was a culture of "can do, we can hack it", a bit like the Army Blackhawk crash. They attempted simulated asymmetric engine failures (two engines on one side) at low altitude - definitely not Boeing's recommendation. Anyway, Ray sadly is intimately familiar with this horrific event having lived through it, so this is obviously a pretty sensitive topic. The USAF B-52 - well, you are wrong in this regard as the BUFF driver was the high time top dog in this community. This is why no one pulled him up on his risky flying in recent times. He'd recently done some super low level pass and was not properly hailed over the coals, because he was deemed the resident "expert". There are two statistical periods when pilots cause accidents - low time (think they know it all, just after getting the licence. A Cessna 182 crashed north of Melbourne a few years ago - young pilot with friends on board doing low altitude steep turns, result - spun into the ground). Next is very high time, highly experienced pilots with very healthy egos - these people know it all and cut their margins way down. This the case of that BUFF pilot. I do remember watching that C-17 crash - another case of practicing for a bloody air show.


Don't get me wrong, I love air shows and amazing aerial feats, but I do not like this culture of doing very high risk "stunts" - inverted ribbon cuts, knife edge passes at 5 feet, flying through hangars, etc ,etc, etc. I did not like the "Masters of Disaster" routine at Avalon this year with Skip Stewart, Melissa Pemberton and Jurgis Kairys. It came across to me as being disorganised and they all seemed to be doing their own thing, flying around with explosions going off. The timing just didn't seem right to me at times. I just question just how often the three of them actually get together and practice this routine.

Did you actually read my posts? I have not said that either these guys are rogue pilots or that Red Bull is some kind of a rogue outfit. I do question though this "extreme" flying culture - this quest to do even more and more high risk shit. I have great admiration for Matt Hall, who is highly disciplined and a brilliant air show pilot. I have not ever been remotely concerned by his expert flying. I've always thought Matt has flown with a decent safety margin and yet is highly entertaining - to me at least. I like to know what Matt Hall thinks about the hangar stunt. I honestly could not see him doing something similar. If you want to read more about this rogue pilot phenomena, there is a book called "Darker shades of Blue"

http://www.amazon.com/Darker-Shades-Blue-Rogue-Pilot/dp/0070349274

If you think this stunt is cool and wonderful, great. Think Red Bull is a cool organisation - awesome! I'm expressing my opinion that I think it is bullshit. If you think it is naïve and condescending of me to express my opinion on this, well I basically do not give a flying F.CK. I've met and known people who have gone done the path of practicing and displaying for air shows that are no longer here. I've been lucky enough to have survived flying with rogue pilots on a number of occasions (due to my own stupid trusting and naïve nature!) - so been there, done that, got the f.cking t-shirt!

[Adam the Akrodude]

I think Nic has nailed it. Lumping the red bull stunt with all the other incidents is outright demeaning. There was no wind, no wild control inputs. Just straight and level happily sitting in ground effect. The civil aviation authority was also overseeing the events. Good on them.

You make it sound like a walk in the park! Wild control inputs are a lot easier than holding an aeroplane rock steady relative to another. It's those minute inputs that are very hard. These aeroplanes are extremely sensitive - super high roll rate and pitch rate in particular. It's like trying to balance a marble in the middle of a sheet of glass you are holding. Try it, then you will understand.
Look, this was a amazing stunt, but that's all it was. I just don't like the culture of doing more and more bloody dangerous shit under the banner of "Red Bull" - do dangerous shit and drink a Red Bull - COOL! Some kid in a Decathalon or an RV will try this next