Burns flying high
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It must be great being the World Rally Champion. When most of us have a day off work, we probably do mundane stuff like catch up on the mounting pile of dishes in the sink, or if we're really lucky we veg out on the couch and watch bad TV. But when Richard Burns and co-driver Robert Reid have days off, they do really cool stuff - such as having a go in a jet plane with the Red Arrows, the Royal Air Force's aerobatic display team!
Burns and Reid took time out of their testing schedule with Peugeot last week to swap racing overalls for flights suits when they visited the Red Arrows base at RAF Scampton in Lincoln for an experience which left the pair breathless.
"It was absolutely amazing," Burns said of his flight in the Hawk jet. "I sort of had an idea what it might be like as I've been up in a Tornado before, but that was a much longer ride, so the pilot didn't try anything too extreme as he didn't want me to feel ill straight away. I've never been a good passenger - I hate sitting in the back in cars for example - and I did feel quite ill afterwards. I was still looking forward to it though because I really wanted to experience it for myself - it's a unique thing.
"I was up for about 20 minutes, and Robert was up for much longer - maybe twice the time. He seemed absolutely fine. There was hardly any time for me to catch my breath - we took off and we were doing really big stunts straight away - straight into a massive loop.
"The acceleration doesn't feel so fierce, it's just the positive and negative G-forces going up and down. You can feel so many forces acting on your body during a loop-the-loop manoeuvre, which is astonishing. Everyone talks about acceleration, which presses your body into the seat, but this is what it's really like. Then you get the negative G, where it feels like your body is dropping down through space. It was a very special experience - quite tricky to describe. I've flown some helicopters with dual controls but this is a totally different thing."
Co-driver Reid actually took the controls of the jet – an experience he described as an 'unforgettable privilege'.
"I was in the back seat of Red Four, with Flight Lieutenant Anthony Parkinson, simply known as Parky. Richard flew in Red Two with Flt. Lt Dave 'D.T.' Thomas," explained Reid. "Parky allowed me to take control of the aircraft and obviously gauged how I was doing before we went into the roll manoeuvre, and I really enjoyed it. When I've tried to fly a helicopter in the past I've found it very enjoyable and been reasonably successful in my efforts, and doing a roll wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. You have to anticipate what you are doing and try to be smooth with the controls, but I think I did OK!
"The manoeuvrability, speed and skills of the Red Arrows pilots are just amazing and for me it was an unforgettable privilege to be able to enjoy the experience."
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