Red Bull Gave Us Actual Wings

My, how the time flies! We really had every intention of posting a couple times a month when we started this thing, but at least the road paving project is going well. I'd also like to blame part of the lapse on Stanpa, who was supposed to do a guest piece, but I have learned from a lifetime of experience that, in his own words, "if you're waiting on [Stanpa], you're backing up."  Anyway, this is an attempt to catch you all up on what we've been up to since Grandparental Visit #1. For more on that, see Jenn's post about our palatial stay-cation. Alright, here we go.

Mid-March brought us a noticeable upward trend in average daily temperatures and the Red Bull Air Race. The Red Bull aquifer under the sands of Abu Dhabi is one of the largest in the world. As a result, extreme sports events are naturally drawn to the region to tap into the seemingly inexhaustible supply of liquid wings. The latest One of these was the Air Race. Other events since early November include the season kick off for the Formula 1 circuit, two different kinds of powerboat grand prix (prixes?), and a motocross exhibition. An extreme desert race is going on right now, surprisingly not sponsored by RB. But back to the Air Race: three days of 24 tiny, overclocked planes maneuvering one-at-a-time through a course of inflatable pylons over water under a strict set of rules and associated time penalties. The margins are so slim that pilots incurring a single one-second penalty mid-lap simply quit and returned to the landing area.

The course was set up in the "breakwater" area between our grocery store and the public beach and was free and open to the public (it would have been tough to rope off). The nearest viewing spot from our apartment was right next to the aerial equivalent of a hairpin turn, which required pilots to perform a high-speed chandelle starting about 60' above the water. I found the intricacies of racing much more interesting than Q, who was entertained for about the first lap of the first plane of the first day; he insisted on staying, however, which I suspect was mostly for the people watching. Intermissions included some other adrenaline/Red Bull fueled aerial exhibitions like wing-walking, skydiving, and those wingsuit things (think human-sized neon flying squirrel). Oh, and two of the Sheik-copters literally just hovering all afternoon to watch the race. Mmmmm.....avgas fumes.