So far this season, the Red Bull Air Race World Championship hasn’t gone according to plan for one of its most consistently successful pilots, Kirby Chambliss. At this weekend’s event in Malaysia, the 2006 overall champion will push hard to break out of a slump, giving his all – as he’s always done.
PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia)– Kirby Chambliss believes that you make your own luck. Growing up in Texas, his family worked hard just to make ends meet – there wasn’t money for flying lessons. Today, however, Kirby is one of the planet’s most accomplished pilots; and one of the inspirational pioneers who has helped to make the Red Bull Air Race World Championship a global success. On Sunday, at the the Malaysian stop of the world’s fastest motorsport series, he’ll use the same perseverance that has served him so well in a determined effort to come back from early season disappointments.
“Growing up in the United States, you can be anybody you want to be – you just have to be willing to work hard and make all the sacrifices,” Chambliss said after Friday’s training runs in blistering Putrajaya. “And for me, I consider myself really lucky because I always knew what I wanted to do – be a pilot.”
So when Chambliss’s dad came home with a mish-mash of airplane parts, a teenage Kirby worked after school and on weekends to help him rebuild the aircraft. To pay for flying lessons, the youngster washed dishes and took whatever jobs he could find –from fueling and washing planes to slinging baggage. He got his ratings, flew cargo, worked as a flying instructor, and at 24 became the youngest pilot at Southwest Airlines. Aerobatics followed, including five U.S. National Unlimited Championships, the Freestyle World Championship, and then his success in the Red Bull Air Race, where he immediately became a dominant force.
Nonetheless, the first two Air Race stops this season haven’t been particularly kind to the flying ace, who comes into Putrajaya ranked tenth overall. And the tropical heat – a good 115 degrees F / 45 degrees C in the cockpit while wearing a G-race suit that feels, in the pilot’s words, “like an electric blanket” – is a challenge for all the contenders. But Chambliss isn’t about to fly conservatively now. “I’m going to push hard, and if it doesn’t work out or I touch a gate,” he says, “at least I tried my best.” As ever, Kirby Chambliss will be going for the win.
Story by Red Bull Air Race
