The Red Bull Air Race is fast, dangerous and confrontational. But it is also an absolutely high-tech sports form. Victory or defeat is often decided by minimal differences in the aerodynamic details of the aircraft. In the race itself, the engine – highly tuned by a professional – can give the pilot an advantage of a few hundredths of a second. The Air Gates are the result of years of development, and the Tower is an ultra-high-class technological competence center; this is where all the lines, including the wireless ones, that are needed for broadcasting and timekeeping come together. A special system had to be developed for timekeeping, and it is capable of determining every aircraft’s location, speed and direction of flight within a three-dimensional space. And it does it 500 times a second with the utmost precision.
Balász Gárdi
Red Bull Air Race