Coulthard beaten at Silverstone
Plane wins battle of wings v wheels
As he prepares to take to the skies for the UK Red Bull Air Race at Longleat on 2 September, Jones challenged Red Bull’s motorsport heroes to a duel. Determined to prove that air racing is indeed the ‘Formula One of the skies’, Jones raced Coulthard and Rea around Silverstone in an attempt to prove that his plane is as quick and nimble as DC’s F1 car and Rea’s 1,000cc bike.
British pilot Jones won the race with a time of 1.04 minutes, Coulthard was second with a time of 1.31 minutes and Red Bull Honda Superbike rider Jonathan Rea coming in third with a time of 1.57 minutes.
Jones said: “I didn’t expect to win it and was worried initially about the tight corners, especially when pulling about 10 G’s around Stowe corner. It was amazing to see the bike and car down below on the track, and to hear the F1 car when it accelerated. Races like today are why I love being involved with the Red Bull Air Race World Series and I cant wait until the next unusual challenge.”
Coulthard said: “I wasn’t surprised with the result to be honest, given that we know planes can fly faster than cars. I was very interested to see how the bike handles the corners from such close range especially as at times we were only a couple of metres apart. I was also surprised at how well the plane handled some of the tight turns. It was a great challenge but no one likes coming in second place. I’d like to see a replay of the race to see just how tight to the corners Steve flew!”
Rea said: “That was great fun, if a little scarey at times. I was doing well keeping in front of David, but down the straight his superior acceleration pulled him past just before braking into the corner. I have to say I’m looking forward to racing just with bikes again and not having to overtake vehicles two metres in width. Good luck to Steve at Longleat, fingers crossed he can win on home turf.”
Jones, fresh back from the Istanbul leg of the Red Bull Air Race series, is one of three British pilots competing in the series. Paul Bonhomme finished second in last weekend’s thrilling race in Istanbul. Nigel Lamb is the third British pilot, all competing in the Red Bull Air Race World Series which comes to Longleat, UK on 2 September 2006.
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I'm going to Longleat on the 2nd Sept - its going to be amazing. Thinks it £35 a CAR (brother has bought the ticket) so the more people you pack in the "cheaper" it is - maybe thats why he asked me :-).
any more surprises for us? Why not report some of Top Gear's pointless wacky races? 
But it was only a superbike and not a Moto GP bike, a Moto GP bike would have been much closer to the F1 car in terms of lap times.
Even a Moto GP bike is A LOT slower than an F1 car. Cars have more acceleration, braking and cornering potential than a bike.
The lap times at Shanghai:
F1 - Michael Schumacher, Ferrari, 2004, 1min 32.238sec
Moto GP - Daniel Pedrosa, Honda, 2006, 1min 59.318sec
Ali.
Human g-force experience
Amusement park rides such as roller coasters typically do not expose the occupants to much more than about 3 g (some notable exceptions: the SheiKra Rollercoaster at Tampa which pulls 4 g, plus the Oblivion in England and the Titan Rollercoaster in Texas, both with a maximum of 4.5 g)[1][2][3]
A sky-diver in a stable free-fall experiences his full weight of 1 g (see terminal velocity)
A scuba diver or swimmer experiences his full weight of 1 g, but buoyancy largely cancels the weight of his body. However, density differences do create forces. The lungs are significantly buoyant.
Astronauts in Earth orbit experience 0 g, or 'weightlessness'. Although they are still strongly attracted by the Earth's gravity, they are in 'constant free fall' and therefore feel no weight.
Passengers on planes on a parabolic trajectory experience 0 g (as in the Vomit Comet)
Aerobatic and fighter pilots may sometimes experience a greyout between 6 and 8 g. This is not a total loss of consciousness but is characterised by temporary loss of colour vision, tunnel vision, or an inability to interpret verbal commands. They also experience a 'redout' at negative g. These effects are mostly caused by blood pressure differences between the heart and the brain.
[edit]
Everyday g-forces
10.4 g when falling down into a chair.
8.1 g when walking off a step.
3.5 g during a cough.
2.9 g during a sneeze. [4]
[edit]
Strongest g-forces survived by humans
Voluntarily: Colonel John Stapp in 1954 sustained 46.2 g in a rocket sled, while conducting research on the effects of human deceleration. See Martin Voshell (2004), 'High Acceleration and the Human Body'.
Involuntarily: Formula One race car driver David Purley survived an estimated 179.8 g in 1977 when he decelerated from 172 km·h−1 (107 mph) to 0 in a distance of 26 inches (66 cm) after his throttle got stuck wide open and he hit a wall.[1]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelera
Don't forget the SBK track in 2006 was on the international circuit which is around 3.5km, the GP circuit is 5.1km.
The aircraft was an Extra 300, which is stressed to +/- 10g. 10g was instantaneous, around +7g is the maximum continuous for a trained pilot, even then they will experience visual impairment due to blood draining from the brain. A continous +10g will result in a blackout and unconciousness.
As Coultard said, it would interesting to see how tight his lines were!
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