Tue, Jun 26, 2018
Series Is At The Halfway Point
Returning to Budapest for the 10th year within the series, American pilot Michael Goulian delivered a solid 4th place over the Danube River today at the midway point of the 2018 Red Bull Air Race Series.
Goulian kicked off the day by dueling Japan’s Yoshi Muroya in the Round of 14; flying cleanly and aggressively with a final time of 57.504, putting pressure on the Japanese Pilot to perform. Muroya ultimately received a DNF for an Over G in Gate 7, and the Fastest Loser spot was then settled to Frenchmen Francois LeVot.
The Round of 8 clicked along, with Murphy vs. Goulian – a classic repeat head-to-head match up in the 2018 season. Murphy took to the track first but picked up a total of 4 seconds of penalties. The time to beat? 1:02.264. Goulian was cleared into the track but the American pilot found a penalty himself: +2 seconds for a final time of 59.486.
The team found themselves in the Final 4 again for the fourth time in a row this season. After a pylon hit in gate 3 and a handful of penalties to keep all of you on your toes, he finished the race with a time of 1:04.256: 4th place overall!
“Before the season started we set out a plan to be consistently in the Final 4. If we can get to the Final 4 every race and then be consistently on the podium, we are going to be vying for the World Championship come the end of the season and I think we are well on track to do that. There are tracks where we expected to have trouble and this was one of them because there was just so much energy in the VTMs that made getting the airplane turned around a little tricky and it was a high-risk track so to come out of Budapest and also Chiba with great results gives us really good momentum going into Kazan where we expect a favorable track and definitely Indianapolis as well, where we have done well in the past.” commented the team’s Race Analyst and Manager, Pablo Branco.
This result retains the team’s second place in the overall World Championship standings, and solidifies the best start to a season the team has ever seen.
“A couple years ago if we were given the opportunity to be halfway through the season in second place, two points behind the leader with four Final 4s, we would have taken it. We are super proud and happy to be in the position we are.”
(Source: Mike Goulian Airshows news release. Images from the Red Bull Air Race content pool)
More News
Aero Linx: JAARS Nearly 1.5 billion people, using more than 5,500 languages, do not have a full Bible in their first language. Many of these people live in the most remote parts of>[...]
'Airplane Bounced Twice On The Grass Runway, Resulting In The Nose Wheel Separating From The Airplane...' Analysis: The pilot reported, “upon touchdown, the plane jumped back>[...]
"Burt is best known to the public for his historic designs of SpaceShipOne, Voyager, and GlobalFlyer, but for EAA members and aviation aficionados, his unique concepts began more t>[...]
"Polaris Dawn, the first of the program’s three human spaceflight missions, is targeted to launch to orbit no earlier than summer 2024. During the five-day mission, the crew >[...]
There Are SO Many Ways To Get YOUR Aero-News! It’s been a while since we have reminded everyone about all the ways we offer your daily dose of aviation news on-the-go...so he>[...]