Air Gators aim to repair pylons in record time in Barcelona
BARCELONA, Spain – Being inside an Air Gate at the Red Bull Air Race feels a little bit what it might seem like to be trapped inside a giant bicycle tyre – you’re under a lot of air pressure. Pumped up by state-of-the-art “Air Gate chargers” that are tucked under the base, the 20-metre high pylons are kept inflated to about 14 millibar. That is enough pressure to make your ears start to pop a bit but it’s what is needed to keep the Air Gates both perfectly erect and prevent them from moving at all in winds of up to 60 km/h.
It is not an especially pleasant place to be once the trap door on the floor is shut and the howling 15 PS motor starts blasting a powerful jet-stream of air into the cone-shaped pylon, which is about 5 metres wide at the base and narrows to 75 centimetres wide at the top. The petrol-powered charger inflates the Air Gate in about 12 to 20 seconds, an improvement of 90 seconds in 2008. The annoying noise of the engine has a desirable side-effect: it helps keep birds away from the pylons and the track.
Rapid repair
Minding the Air Gates is a highly competitive team of “Air Gators” led by Martin Jehart of Bellutti Protection Systems, an engineering firm from Austria. They keep as fit as the 15 race pilots and their goal is to repair a hit pylon is fast as possible. They have made a staggering reduction in the time it takes to get the deflated pylon back up and ready for racing over the years. In the last five years they have slashed the down time from 20 minutes to a record time of 1:14 which was achieved in San Diego this year. They got close to that in Barcelona with 1:17. The dramatic improvement in times is due in part to technology breakthroughs made by Research & Development back at the home office in Wenns, Austria as well as intensive Air Gator training at the various locations around the world. Even in the last year the Air Gators have cut their best time in half from about 2:30.
“Our goal now is to get down to under a minute,” said Gerald Voggenberger, who like his 15 fellow Air Gators is also a certified life guard and had to pass rigorous physical fitness tests to be on the team. “We’re all athletes and this is motorsport. We’re always looking for ways to save time. You can never go fast enough. If you consider it took about 20 minutes to change a pylon five years ago and maybe 2:30 a year ago and we’re down to 1:14 now, it’s only a question of time before we break the 1-minute barrier.”
Air Gator Go!
The Air Gators are divided up into four teams of four and are spread out at strategic locations around the race track – so they could in theory repair four pylons simultaneously. It is rare that a pilot will hit more than one pylon on a run through the track but in Barcelona there have been a number of double-pylon hits. After a pylon goes down and the pilot is out of the track, the Air Gators spring to action. It takes about 30 seconds to get to the barge the Air Gates are based upon, which is when their clock starts ticking. The pylons are divided into six sections and attached by zippers. Only one of the six pieces needs to be replaced most of the time. They also gather up the shredded bits of the destroyed section, close the trap door, pump the pylon up and jump back off the barge.
“We’re only allowed into the track after the pilot has completed his run,” said Tom Brandstaetter, an Air Gator. “Then we get the ‘Air Gator Go’ and we’re off. How fast we get the job done depends a bit on the wind and weather conditions. The conditions were fantastic when we got the record time of 1:14 in San Diego this year. The damaged section was at the top where the zipper is the shortest. There were hardly any waves and there was no wind.”
At some races the Air Gators are busier than at others. Most of the pylon hits are in training. So far there have been 27 pylon hits in Barcelona through training and Qualifying. This year in the four days of training and racing in Abu Dhabi there were 34 pylon hits. But last year in four days of flying in Porto there was not a single pylon hit.
“We’re always charged up when there’s a pylon hit,” said Brandstaetter. “It’s always better to have work to do rather than just sit around watching the flying.”
Experts on pylon hits
The Air Gators have nevertheless become experts in analysing the different pilots – and they know their respective flying styles, strengths and weaknesses. They keep a list each year of how many pylon hits each pilot has. Japan’s Yoshi Muroya and Spain’s Alex Maclean are near the top of the list this year while Hungary’s Peter Besenyei and Britain’s Paul Bonhomme, who went through all of 2007 without a single pylon hit, are once again at the bottom with rarely a hit. The Air Gators all have a favourite pilot, oddly enough one who rarely hits a pylon because they admire his elegant flying style. And the Air Gators know that the rookies each year will always keep them busy.
“The rookies are always more likely to hit a pylon,” said Voggenberger. “That’s just the way it is. But they tend to settle down towards the end of their first year. Matt Hall, for instance, hardly has any pylon hits anymore. It’s important for R&D to keep track of every pilot’s pylon hits, when, where and why it happened.”
