London - Red Bull Air Race

Seeing as Claire isn't really in the best form for adventure sports at the moment we thought we would go and watch others do it instead.

The activity of choice was flying, in particular flying down the river Thames at a height of around 5-10 metres, while dodging inflatable 'gates' going at speeds of up to 400km/hr. Impressive to say the least. It was very reassuring that one of the pilots has a day job with British Airways, although if he flies his jumbo like his racing plane it could be an interesting flight!!

The race caused the closure of the London City Airport and the river. The planes first had to battle the highrises of the Canary Wharf financial district in order to get low enough to enter the course (outside Millenium Dome), as the plane must be below the height of the gates as it goes through or they get a time penalty. Red gates have the plane flying through sideways and blue gates must have horizontal wings. More time penalties apply. The course is completed twice with a 'half cuban' (upside down loop) at the half way mark.

If you have the same question that we did, what if the planes hit the gates? That was answered, and happy to say apart from a loud bang as the 'gate' burst, the plane continues although off course. There were crazy guys sitting on the pontoon just waiting for this, and the replacement 'gate' only took 5min to go up.

Unfortunately the photos weren't too good as we had to rely on the camera phone, as someone forgot either of our 2 cameras....