Red Bull Air Race pilots flying with the Roulettes

Red Bull Air Race pilots Alejandro Maclean, Nicolas Ivanoff, Michael Goulian and Sergey Rakhmanin flying with the Roulettes.The Roulettes are the Royal Australian Air Force's elite formation aerobatic display team that showcase Air Force flying skills to the Australian public. The Roulettes currently fly Pilatus PC-9/A aircraft.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• elite
• formation
• flight
• RAAF
• royal
• air
• force
• australia
• pilatus
• team
• red
• bull
• race
• display
• show
• airshow

[paddy217125]

is there any more film of them flying with the roulettes? i would like to see more :)

[Redbullairrace]

Unfortunately, there isn't. Sorry about that!

[IIproductionsII]

@slickstrings Yeah, being such an old aircraft I would assume parts would be prone to failure. I hope to buy a Viper Jet one day, they're easy to maintain.

[slickstrings]

@IIproductionsII well, maybe. But it would be so expensive to run. Like rediculously. & parts cant really just be machined up for it when they break. For example, even while they were in service, the air force guys really only did routine stuff. When it came to actually fixing engines & complex internal gear, staff from raytheon & general dynamics etc came in to do the heavy stuff.

[IIproductionsII]

@slickstrings That seems stupid, I don't see why a bunch of F-111 enthusiasts can't just get together and keep one going, for displays and all. I mean I'm sure ex RAAF engineers and mechanics who worked on the F-111 would have a good idea on how to do it.

[slickstrings]

@IIproductionsII apparantly they are considered too complex to be privately owned. so it stands to reason that from now on, no modern fighter jets will be kept flying. The most modern fighter you will see flying after retirement will be the old f88 sabre. very sad.

[IIproductionsII]

@slickstrings Yeah, wished I'd gone to that airshow last year. Shame we can't keep the ones we have on display flying, like the F-111 at the RAAF Museum.

[slickstrings]

@IIproductionsII Yeah. they were amazing. A cold war aircraft that still outperforms anything in production 40 years later. I was lucky enough to see them fly at their last airshow in williamtown. They had a very unique sound. At the show they would be displaying some aircraft out the front of everyone, then an F111 would sneak up from behind at low level and come blasting over out of nowhere. Was awsome.

[IIproductionsII]

@slickstrings Yes, when you really think about it interms of spead and payload, the F-111 was the best aircraft we ever had, shame we couldn't keep it going longer..but I guess they were just getting way too old.

[slickstrings]

@IIproductionsII yeah the f35, the engineers did an amazing job actually getting it to work, but the fact is too much is being asked of it. It wont be able to perform anything really well. It will do a lot of things quite averagely. Stealth, thats good but its at the cost of ability to turn, speed, range, payload. & its so complex pilots wont get the flight hours needed. Its a defence contractors project. its for profit. not for pilots if you ask me.

[IIproductionsII]

@slickstrings Private contractors are you serious? I have to admit, the number of private contracted chefs that have been employed in RAAF messes has increased, but never would I thought that they would hire private contractors for maintainance on aircraft. I think the main advantage of the F-35 is supposed to be it's advanced electronics and stealth capability. I haven't really compared the Hornet to the Lightning, but I love the look of the Hornet, not that, that matters in combat.

[slickstrings]

@IIproductionsII I guess you would call me an enthusiast. The governments plan at the moment is to use private contractors to do all the maintenance on training squad's aircraft ie hawks. What a stupid idea. Pay a for profit organisation to do the work to save money. Morons. But with the f35, im skeptical. It wont be as manoverable as the f18, it wont be particularly fast, it will be too expensive to fly a lot so pilot training will suffer. I dont like the sound of it.