Red Bull Air Race San Diego 2009 Review, Hannes Arch Bird Strike

Nicolas Ivanoff of France won the second Red Bull Air Race
of the season in San Diego on Sunday with a superb run in the finals. Britains Paul Bonhomme took second place in front of 55,000 spectators watching the race over San Diego Bay under bright blue skies 1.11 seconds behind Ivanoff.

This is really nice, said Ivanoff, who threw his fists into the air in celebration after climbing out of his new Edge 540. Explosive flying from Ivanoff in both the Super 8 and Final 4 proved that he is a force to be reckoned with. Beating his own outstanding personal best from the Super 8, Ivanoff wiped seconds off his rivals with a course record of 1:17:21.

Im really happy. The new plane is great. I thought I had a pretty good run in the final but its always possible someone else comes up with an even faster time. It was only the second career victory for Ivanoff, who won the final race of the 2007 season in Perth, Australia.

Arch, who had won a maximum 13 points in the first race and picked up another point by posting the fastest Qualifying time on Saturday, had the speed to win on Sunday and was just ahead of Ivanoff at the first interval. But then a pelican punctured a gaping hole in his horizontal stabiliser shortly before the midway point. Arch said he was startled by the bird hit and was then unable to properly level his wings through the next Air Gate. It was a costly two-second penalty that dropped him behind both Ivanoff and Bonhomme.

I was having a really good run and then I had a bird strike that distracted me, Arch said after inspecting the blood-covered hole on the right side of his planes tail. I was off line after that. The bird strike nearly tore off my horizontal stabiliser. It was bad luck but good luck that I was able to fly to the finish line.

More information about the race on htt://www.redbullairrace.com

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• bird
• strike
• pelican
• accident
• damage
• red
• bull
• air
• race
• san
• diego
• hannes
• arch
• crash
• 2009

[tsgill15]

what kind of stupid question is that spyydert. are you sutpid? that bird got minced to 3000 little pieces. It's DEAD!!!

[2muchskill4you]

Mr Pelican had found Nemo and was transporting Nemo back to his dad when POW!! an airplane hit him. RIP Mr Pelican

[veraten]

sandy iego !

[PackardDog]

Stupidist non-sport in the world. A bunch of egotistical, small penised men who are trying to prove something to a crowd of idiots.

[133j0hn]

@tsgill15

lol obviously spyydert was joking.

I'm starting to think everyone who posts a joke nowadays needs to add a "/sarcasm" tag after, just so people like you actually get that it's a joke.

[mafiagangsta1000]

this is awesome

[McZeat]

Arh The Little Bird :(

[2Fast4U0921]

It's just a flesh wound.

[Dupeo42]

roflmao at the blood smear and the feather stuck to the tail.

[sidney765]

yeah, it healed after a week

[orlandoyadelina]

I was at this race and to bad he hit a bird and of course its dead and the good thing is that nothing happend to hannes arch.

[RK1Hatty]

Wow, its a DSQ for going over-g? I say thats a bit far. Yeah, safety is a big issue when you're pushing that hard but I still say that something like that should only be limited by the skill of the pilot and the quality of the aircraft.