Mcleod: “It would be great to put pressure on the veteran pilots”
SALZBURG, Austria - Pete McLeod of Canada will shatter Red Bull Air Race history in his first race next season as the youngest pilot ever in the World Championship. But the 24-year-old pilot with an economics degree is hardly a newcomer to flying even though he is a full decade younger than his nearest rival. Yet depending on how you define ‘experience’, McLeod could argue he has 24 years of it – he went for his first ride in a plane in his rugged home in northern Canada with his father at the age of 6 weeks and has been flying ever since. The strikingly confident McLeod, who stands 6-feet tall and weighs 180 pounds, is hoping to tower over the field one day as well. The pilot with the jet black hair will be part of the largest crop of rookies in the history of the Red Bull Air Race World Championship in 2009 along with Australia’s Matt Hall, Japan’s Yoshihide Muroya, and Matthias Dolderer of Germany.
“It would be great to put pressure on the veteran pilots as a rookie,” said McLeod, who grew up in remote Red Lake and is now based in London, Ontario. “I would like to have podium potential in my second season and be able to make a run for the Red Bull Air Race World Championship within three to five years. I think it could be realistic with a good plan but it’s not easy because everyone seems to get faster every year.”
McLeod knows that rookies in the past have struggled to make a mark and often failed to even score a single championship point. But, like the other newcomers in 2009, he likes to point to the amazing trajectory of Hannes Arch. The Austrian ace finished 10th in the 13-pilot field in his first year in 2007 yet won the World Championship in his second year.
Gap in race experience
“I think it’s not a rule that rookies will be less competitive but there are two factors that make it hard: rookies are faced with an ever-increasing gap in race experience and are often running much slower aircraft and aircraft set-up,” he said, sounding determined to minimise those two handicaps. “Success in the first few races will be largely measured within the team and my progression rather than in the rankings against the others. But at the end of the first season I would like to be considered the ‘one to watch’ for 2010.”
McLeod, who is single, has spent the last three years focussing on getting into and ready for the race since he finished the University of Western Ontario, he even skipped the graduation ceremony to fly in an air show and got his degree later in the post. Already in peak physical condition, McLeod spends five days a week in the gym and tailors his workouts to improve his G-tolerance.
Mcleod's career
He grew up playing hockey and acquired his flying skills at a young age. He said he can’t even remember the first time he flew a plane but that his parents have pictures of him sitting on a stack of pillows so he could reach the controls and see out the window. There are seldom roads in northern Canada, he says, so just about everything and everyone is shuttled by air everywhere. That’s the world he grew up in - hunting, fishing and getting his pilot’s licence at age 16 even before he got a driver’s licence. McLeod believes that challenging environment helped sharpen his flying skills.
“I was basically raised in an airplane,” said McLeod, who said he was captivated by the Red Bull Air Race when he first saw a film clip of a race five years ago. “I started aerobatics at 16 and for the last five years I’ve been eating, breathing and sleeping competition aerobatics, air show freestyle and the Red Bull Air Race. The first time I saw a video of the race I knew that without a doubt it was something I wanted to compete in. I enjoy freestyle aerobatics but it lacks the competitive aspect that the race has. I want to measure myself against the top pilots in the world.”
McLeod said he was looking forward to competing against Americans Kirby Chambliss and Michael Goulian, whom he remembers watching as stars of the North American freestyle aerobatics scene when he was younger. McLeod said that he and the other rookies will certainly be receptive to tips from the veterans, who after Arch’s quick success are likely to be a bit more reluctant to help rookies. McLeod said that he had not received many tips from them yet. “And when I do get advice I don’t know whether to believe them or not,” he said with a laugh.
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