PORTO, Portugal – Michael Goulian has spent four years trying to figure out how to win a Red Bull Air Race and now, after getting his career-first victory in Budapest, the American ace can hardly wait to get back in the cockpit. Goulian, who has made small but important mid-season changes to both his engine and strategy, is clearly on a roll and quite understandably eager to keep his winning streak going at this weekend’s race in Porto/Gaia on Sept. 12/13 – just a week after celebrating his 41st birthday.

Goulian: “I love Porto”

“I love Porto as a city and a race venue,” said Goulian, who upset championship leaders Paul Bonhomme of Britain and Hannes Arch of Austria with his stylish victory in front of 650,000 spectators on a similar fast and furious river track in Budapest last month. “If I can fly cleanly through the chicane in Porto it should be a good venue for us.”

Goulian had struggled with decidedly mixed results most of the last four years – landing on the podium only once with 2nd place in Perth in the last race of 2007 but finishing no higher than 5th (San Diego) in 2008. He was 5th overall in 2006 before falling to 8th in both 2007 and 2008.

Right formula to challenge the front runner

Always cheerful, Goulian worked hard on himself and his signature green plane but could never seem to find the formula to challenge the front runners. The man from Massachusetts was regularly behind not only his two American rivals – former champions Mike Mangold and Kirby Chambliss – but he was also almost always behind less-experienced pilots like Arch and in the first two races this season even behind rookie Matt Hall of Australia.

“It took longer than I thought it would, but I was always sure the day would come,” said Goulian of his first victory in Budapest. He thought 2009 would finally be his year after doing a lot of work over the winter improving his plane’s aerodynamics. Not only did they turn out to be ineffective, Goulian and his two American compatriots were hampered by underperforming engines through the first third of the six-race season. He finished a disappointing 14th – second to last – in the first two races before jumping up to 6th in the third race in Windsor and then winning Budapest, where his great promise became evident in training and Qualifying.

Handicapped by ‘stock engine’

“I was handicapped in the first two races by what would be considered by Red Bull Air Race standards a ‘stock engine’,” he said. “There was no magic in the engine at all. Before Windsor we made some changes to the engine which in essence gave us about the same engine horsepower as most of the other teams. We needed to increase the horsepower and decrease the weight of our plane which we did by changing to a lighter-weight exhaust. Once we had the competitive machine, I was sure we would start to do well in the race standings.”

Goulian has since jumped up to 8th in the overall table with 18 points after collecting 12 in Budapest and he is zeroing in on a group of five pilots from 3rd to 7th separated by just 7 points. Goulian, for example, is now only 10 points behind 3rd place, Nicolas Ivanoff of France. Goulian realises he won’t be able to catch Bonhomme or Arch at the top, with 42 and 41 points respectively. But everyone else is fair game.

More podiums would be great

“We thought we had a shot at winning the championship this year but that is obviously out of the question,” said Goulian, who said his plane is still a bit heavier than his rivals. “So for now more podiums would be great. But there are great teams and great pilots in the field so that will surely not be easy.”

Goulian, who is the co-author of a series of books “Basic and Advanced Aerobatics” that has become an industry standard for aerobatic flight training manuals, has also made some changes to his race strategy. He stopped watching the lines the other pilots were flying through the track in Budapest on TV monitors and instead focused on his own flying. “I felt I was flying a good line in Budapest, which was actually different than almost everyone else. My race times were in the top two or three for each training session so I felt that the line was a good one and I just stayed with it. By watching the other guys it would have simply added doubt to my racing line, which I didn’t need entering my head. As they say in flying: ‘plan the flight and fly the plan’.”

Source: Red Bull Air Race. Com
Photo: Rob Vogelaar