Red Bull Air Race Tech Talk | Engine Cooling

Red Bull Air Race Technical Director Jim "Jimbo" Reed explains new measures the teams are taking to ensure they get the best performance out of their raceplane engines.
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About: The Red Bull Air Race World Championship features the world's best pilots in a motorsports competition based on speed, precision and skill. Using the fastest, most agile and lightweight racing planes, Red Bull Air Race pilots navigate a low-level aerial race track made up of air filled pylons, flying at speeds reaching 230mph while withstanding forces of up to 10g. The objective is to complete the course, navigating the 65 feet high specially designed inflatable pylons known as Air Gates in the fastest possible time. Red Bull Air Race pilots must pass between the Air Gates in the correct position taking care not to touch them with their wings. The pilots compete for points at each Red Bull Air Race and the one who accumulates the most at the end of the season is crowned Red Bull Air Race World Champion.

[JSFGuy]

Yep, I did this on my supercharger intercooler, with my windshield washer pump and tank. Cooling effect is much improved with lower dew points.

[pinkdispatcher]

Interesting. It's not exactly what most people would call "water cooling", but technically it probably is. A common name for this is "evaporative cooling", because the greatest effect comes from evaporating the water.

[MrZrryan]

the Great Red Beard hath spoken. Thank you.

[KOUKAROS-GR]

What about water out side of pilots canopy? It would not have visibility problem?

[ginginthing]

What about an alcohol water intake injection like they came up with in the 40's? This was done to artificially increase the octane (which is not needed now) and lower the CHT's and EGT's which seems like it would be needed here. Also, since the mecs are wanting to max out cooling any way possible, has anyone done accurate fluid flow and temperature mapping models of this pressure box/ cylinder fin cooling method or a more efficient air manifold? Since you are spending millions on these racers, maybe a different design and number of cooling fins need to be specific on each row of cylinders. I'm sure Lycoming can model this stuff up. Not much has changed in 80 years on these Lyc and Cont cyl and pressure box designs, besides the tweaking. You still have a box where cool air comes in at the front, passes over the hot front jugs, and then cools the rear jugs with warmer air causing a cooling air temp differential between the jugs. This isn't a big problem for normal aviation engines, but it is not the best way to get max performance that u r looking for. All the air passing over the jugs should be the same temps and there should not be any stagnant air pockets such as in the upper rear of the box and this can't be done with old pressure box technology.


I'm assuming Lycoming supplying these Red Bull engines have studied the engine cooling tech of engines such as the Rotax 912 up thru the new 915 engines where they use both air and fluid cooling. Are they going to wait another 80 years to come out of the cave with a better tech that apparently is needed for your racing engines? Sometimes it might be okay to think out of the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" box. I'm aware that any change to GA aviation aircraft takes a hundred years of proven track records before being considered acceptable, but there are ways of doing tests now that prove changes would improve aspects of engine performance without jeopardizing durability for these highly experimental applications.

[robertlafnear]

How much water do you have onboard ? .... the extra weight is a factor or not ?.. hope it is just enough to get from A to B interesting !

[tomrkn]

Please don't end the championship :'(