Case Studies
Red Bull Air Race
Cosworth provides technologies employed by competitors in the Red Bull Air Race World Championship that draw on the our capabilities in both mechanical and electronic engineering.
The Red Bull Air Race World Championship features the world's best race pilots in a motorsport competition that combines speed, precision and skill.
Using the fastest, most agile and lightweight racing planes, pilots navigate a low-level aerial track made up of air-filled pylons, flying at speeds reaching 230 mph while withstanding forces of up to 12G.
The AEIO 540 engines employed by competitors in the Red Air Race series are produced by Lycoming, a company that introduced its first aerobatic engine in the same year (1967) as Cosworth unveiled our first F1 engine - the DFV.
We have applied our experience in engine component design and manufacture to provide Lycoming with pistons for their AEIO 360 and 540 engines as well as the up-rated Thunderbolt variant, which employs an increased compression ratio and water injection to deliver maximal power and performance.
A more recent development for Cosworth and the Red Bull Air Race World Championship is the implementation of race telemetry systems using our Sigma line of data acquisition and analysis solutions. Although Cosworth electronics systems had already been used to collect data for TV animation footage for the championship, none of the competitors had adopted a telemetry system to provide real time data…until now.
For 2010, Hannes Arch, the 2008 World Champion, became the first competitor to use race telemetry on his plane. Working closely with our electronics team the Austrian pilot has demonstrated the benefit of the system, qualifying fastest in the first event of the season and winning the second.
Hannes has been very complimentary of the project so far which has attracted significant attention:
"The entire team really appreciates the support and personal commitment that Cosworth has provided which has been crucial in getting to this point. I've already noticed that the Championship organizers, Red Bull Racing, Red Bull motorsports and lots of others are getting really interested and excited about us being the first race team in the history of Red Bull Air Race to use our own telemetry system. Even the media took it on and we got very good coverage internationally when we announced the cooperation with Cosworth at our media event."
