source:
redbullcheeverracing.com
Imagine an IndyCar ride without the limitations of the dreaded concrete
walls. What you might envision is the Red Bull Edge 540 aircraft piloted by
Kirby Chambliss.
Ask any engineer on pit lane and they will tell you the only thing that keeps an
IndyCar grounded is the aerodynamic effect of the wings. Just reverse the angle
of the wings up and an IndyCar will take off.
Without going to the extreme of testing this theory, Alex Barron and
EddieCheever Jr. took a ride with Kirby in the Red Bull edge to see just what an
IndyCar ride in the sky might be like.
"It felt exactly like the moments before you hit the wall at Indy,"described
Cheever, who has had his share of encounters with the wall in his 15-year
open-wheel, oval track racing career.
The Red Bull Edge 540 is an advanced aerobatic propeller plane capable of
handling negative G's, in a range from negative 8 to positive 10. In comparison,
an IndyCar Series car experiences up to 4.7 lateral Gs.
"It was pretty crazy," commented Barron. "We did a lot of tricks that just
aren't possible in any other type of plane: flying upside down between the
mountains, 360's, stalls in midair."