What role does the team play in a speed race? How does a pilot train? What are the characteristics of a competition plane? Juan Velarde, a Repsol pilot, answers all these questions and many more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[171,327],"class_list":["post-96939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-red-bull-air-race-en","tag-juan-velarde","tag-juan-velarde-en"],"yoast_head":"\n
With a plane like that, you can do almost anything. But to pilot it and be able to withstand the g-force we experience, us pilots\u00a0need to undergo very important physical training<\/strong>. It is crucial that we\u00a0strengthen our torso and especially our abdomen<\/strong>. We also must have good cardiovascular fitness. That\u2019s why I follow an aerobic exercise plan with a personal trainer.<\/p>\n Boxing is also part of my training. I\u2019m just an amateur, because if I were to do it professionally\u2026I\u2019m sure I would end up injured, ha ha ha! Boxing gives you a lot of stamina. It also requires technique and reflexes that help to tone your muscles significantly. All of this is very important for high-speed flight and that\u2019s why this part of my training helps me when I compete.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t As pilots, we are the face of competitive aerobatics, but\u00a0having a good team is also essential<\/strong>. Four people travel to the races including\u00a0a pilot, a team coordinator who handles logistics, a tactical specialist who handles the telemetry, and a mechanic who assembles the plane and fine tunes it<\/strong>. In addition to this team, in Spain we have three more engineers who we work with to improve the aircraft\u2019s technology and create flight simulators.\u00a0Without a good team you\u2019ve got no chance of winning, even if you have a good plane and you\u2019re a good pilot. It\u2019s a group effort<\/strong>.<\/p>\n When I started out in the sport many years ago, what I was looking for was something different from my experience as an airline pilot. I wanted to do different things, fly planes upside-down, leave behind the normal ways of flying. Now that I\u2019m in the world of competition aerobatics, I realise that it is very different from my experience with commercial flights, although both provide very interesting things professionally.<\/p>\n In a commercial airliner, state-of-the-art technology is used, along with the highest safety requirements. Just flying such a large machine is gratifying, but on the other hand, competition aerobatics gives you a lot of intense sensations.\u00a0On the track, we fly without looking at the instruments<\/strong>. All the aerodynamic and physical laws are limited to your own senses, and that is pretty amazing.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t To finish, I\u2019d like to tell you something that I\u2019m often asked \u2014 why do I have number 26 on my plane? It\u2019s not just a coincidence, but actually a lot of them! For a long time in my competitive career, I\u00a0flew a Sukhoi Su-26<\/strong>. When we started working with the Repsol sponsorship, Marc M\u00e1rquez visited us at the aerodrome to get to know us. He was the one who christened our planes,\u00a0C\u00e1stor Fantoba\u2019s\u00a0with his number 93 and mine with Dani Pedrosa\u2019s 26. Interestingly, in my first season in the Red Bull Air Race, the factory number of the plane I flew\u2014an Edge 540\u2014was number 26<\/strong>. So when they asked me what number I wanted to compete with, I knew exactly what I wanted.<\/p>\n Thanks to all our Box Repsol fans for your support. We hope to have some good times from here until the end of the season.<\/p>\n Juan Velarde.![\"Juan](\"https:\/\/bxrepsol.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/static\/2022\/08\/05060133\/P-20160423-00404_HiRes-JPEG-24bit-RGB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Juan](\"https:\/\/bxrepsol.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com\/static\/2022\/08\/05060134\/P-20160903-01377_HiRes-JPEG-24bit-RGB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nRepsol Pilot in the Red Bull Air Race<\/p>\n