China put on a great show in English Bay tonight in the first night of the annual Celebration of Light fireworks! As one of the JUDGES I had my eyes trained on the sky critiquing the show and have been sworn to secrecy on how they scored. What I can say is that it's not surprising how great their presentation was, considering China is one of the returning champions and all. However there was a huge surprise in the skies tonight - a crazy stunt plane that zipped in around 9PM and absolutely destroyed the limits that existed in people's brains (read: my brains) about what kind of stunts an airplane could perform. I'm going to assume you were there and you saw this insanity, but if you didn't you'll surely see some footage on the news really soon. It was nuts.
I overheard a lot of people asking who was responsible for the plane's appearance, and after a tiny bit of digging I found out that it's actually a Red Bull stunt plane and the pilot was Pete Mcleod, the youngest professional pilot competing in the Red Bull Air Race World Championship. And he is clearly insanely good at what he does.
Pete Mcleod, photo Red Bull
Here's a photo that Pete posted to Facebook shortly after his flight tonight, with the caption "Shoes are off after one of the coolest aerobatic flights I've ever done. Vancouver you are a MAX POWER! crowd!! Thanks!!!"
Again: nuts. So awesome. Thanks to Red Bull and thanks to Pete!
