Red Bull Athletes Achieve First-Ever Human-Powered Plane Launch
Red Bull is known for pushing the limits of human performance. Nine riders from Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe have now made history by becoming the first people to launch a plane off the ground using pure muscle power. The scene of this feat was Son Bonet aerodrome in Mallorca.
Inside the Human-Powered Aircraft Feat
The ingredients for this spectacular record: a glider and its pilot, a 1,500-metre runway and a total of 6,500 watts of power generated by nine riders connected by a special belt. Florian Lipowitz, Nico Denz, Jordi Meeus, Tim Van Dijke, Laurence Pithie, Adrien Boichis, Davide Donati and Gijs Schoonvelde formed the team that pedalled in a ‘Husky formation’ for around 90 seconds to accelerate the plane to 54 km/h. It ultimately reached an altitude of 100 metres.
Riders React to an Unprecedented Challenge
“When I first heard about this project, I thought it wasn’t realistic”, said Florian Lipowitz about the combination of cycling and aviation. “Launching a plane? Completely impossible. There has never been anything like this in cycling before.”
© Red Bull Content Pool | Samo Vidic
Engineering Innovations Behind Peloton Takeoff
Dan Bigham, Head of Engineering at Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe, pointed out a technical detail. “The harness was a critical element, something that simply did not exist before. We spent countless hours developing it, and that work allowed us to make history with Peloton Takeoff.”
He added: “From the data and our models we knew it would take ~500watts from each rider to launch the plane, but we did not want to stop there. Every watt more, meant more altitude for the plane. Breaking records is one thing. But making record, achieving something unprecedented, is in a whole different league.”
One Year of Development Leads to Liftoff
Bigham & Co. worked on the Peloton Takeoff project for a year to finally get the aircraft off the ground.
Video: Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe ttempt to Launch a Plane
Top Photo – © Red Bull Content Pool | Charly Lopez
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