September 23rd-25th

 

 

Featuring Chuck Aaron in the RedBull Helicopter and the RedBull Jump Team

"Malibu” Chuck Aaron is the first - and only - civilian pilot ever to be licensed to perform helicopter aerobatics in the United States. In fact, he’s one of only three pilots permitted to execute the dangerous maneuvers internationally.

Chuck is also the first helicopter pilot to be presented with the Art Scholl Showmanship Award, an honor bestowed by the International Council of Air Shows to recognize the world’s most outstanding air show performers, and was inducted in 2011 to the prestigious Society of Experimental Test Pilots.

But the blond, mustachioed pilot isn’t one to brag - or to rest on his laurels. Chuck takes to the road much of the year, piloting the one-of-a-kind Red Bull Helicopter through breathtaking air show choreography including backflips, 360-degree rolls, and a heartstopping tumble called the Chuckcilvak. “People can’t believe what they’re seeing, Chuck laughs. “How can a helicopter do all those crazy things?”

Red Bull Jump Team

meet Team Manager:Jon DeVore

Fancy flying head-down towards the ground at 530kph (330mph) with only your body shape to control your descent? Welcome to the extreme skydiving world of the Red Bull Air Force.
Flight sports are littered with the sort of people who like tweaking: speak to anyone from air racing to hang-gliding to aerobatics and they’ll talk endlessly about set-up. The summit of ambition is a machine that handles like it isn’t there. “Like it’s just a pair of wings strapped to my back,” is the usual refrain.
It’s an aspiration that brings the faintest smile to the face of Jon DeVore, manager of the Red Bull Air Force skydiving team: flying without an aircraft is practically his job description. Jon and his band of professional skydivers are pioneers of human flight.
“Flying, not falling,” they say, sometimes as a motto, usually as a gentle correction for the uninitiated. Either way, the phrase expresses a desire to do something more than simply leap and let gravity do its thing.
“People always describe what we do as falling out of aeroplanes,” says Jon. “That isn’t really it. Over the last couple of decades, the professional skydivers of the world have been focused on doing more than falling and building those big formations you see in all the pictures – impressive though that can be.

“We’re taking the sport to new levels. One of the disciplines we’ve become famous for is ‘free-flying’. We were kinda bored simply falling on our bellies towards Earth; so we started going vertical instead: head towards Earth; feet towards Earth – whatever worked. We would fly circles around each other and carve turns – basically demonstrating that our bodies are wings, they can fly.
“A normal belly-to-earth position will generate something between 110-120mph, and even the most flexible person arching as hard as they can won’t manage much more than 130mph. It’s nothing to what we can do vertical. The average vertical position is around 160mph. Head-down I’ve personally managed 317mph, though one team-mate, Charles Bryan, can get upwards of 330mph.
“The feeling is unbelievable. You only get a minute of pure freefall but you lose yourself in that minute. It’s a very pure form of freedom – and it’s overwhelming. Even for people with the jump numbers I have.” Those jump numbers, in case you were wondering, passed 16,000 last year.
Together with the rest of the Red Bull Air Force, he’s a familiar figure on the North American sporting scene, and a half-time and pre-game show regular. For someone who admits to feeling no great hardship being alone with his thoughts, jumping into a stadium filled with screaming sports fans requires a definite shift of mental gears.
It is, Jon acknowledges, a peculiar adrenalin rush. “At first it was very weird. Overwhelming in fact. Our sport doesn’t get the attention that even skateboarding and stuff like that have; so for us to go from quiet, serene parachute flying to suddenly swooping in to NASCAR or a Red Bull Air Race or a big NFL football game… wow!
“For five seconds you’re the star quarterback. Everyone is cheering, you’re pumped up. We put on a show that most people haven’t seen, a lot higher speed than the traditional parachute demos, which gets the crowd that much more jacked-up. And that feels good.”
The showman in Jon has other outlets. He’s been known to fly in formation with former Red Bull Air Race World Champion Kirby Chambliss – though while Kirby pilots his Zivko Edge 540, Jon is free in the breeze, wearing a wingsuit powered by gravity.

 

*******************