Video: Alinghi's weather microlight airplanes in action in Valencia
Alinghi just published an interesting video of their two James Bond-like microlight weather airplanes flying in Valencia. The video must have been shot these last few days and judging from the buildings in the background the shooting took place a couple of miles north of the Malvarosa beach. As one can observe from the footage, conditions are just perfect. Very flat seas, very light winds, nice sunshine, just what the doctor and Ralf Vrolijk ordered for Alinghi 5. So, sailing in Valencia in the middle of the winter can be very enjoyable and much less dangerous than what the Defender of the 33rd America's Cup has been claiming in the last couple of months.
Alinghi's weather microlight airplanes in action. Valencia, 11 January 2010. Video copyright Alinghi
6 Comments:
The Aircraft are XT-912 two seater Microlights. They are normally flown on wheels and have a 700km range. They are made in Australia by Airborne. www.airborne.com.au email: fly@airborne.com.au
Of course it will be light and "enjoyable", these planes wouldn't be able to go out in any conditions when it isn't, same as Alinghi 5 and particularly Oracle's wing rig.
The real question is how many days will like this in February? ... try 4 or 5 maximum.
The planes seem like a state of the art technology option for weather data collection in these conditions.
Are they allowed to gather weather information in something that wasn't consructed in Switzerland???
Apart from their function the microlights are at least one tiny bit of fun and positive emotion in this tragedy
try flying them today!
These types of microlights using the same engine as the Alinghi aircraft have in the past been used to fly right around the world and in fact one is due to leave England shortly for a flight to Australia. They can handle quite severe weather condition. Not 60knots though:)
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