Takeoff at The Red Bull Air Races

Now this is my kind of carnival - airplanes, inflatable water pylons, and cotton candy. Oh yeah.
The Red Bull World Air Races kicked off Friday & Saturday in Abu Dhabi to just about perfect weather. We headed up the road about an hour and half from Dubai to watch some of the best pilots in the world duke it out in a mid-air Formula 1.
Unfortunately, just like in Formula 1, the Americans stink. You can here our friend Malcolm from the UK in the background telling us that Americans are just good at being loud:

All in all, it was a pretty amazing day - these guys could do just about anything with an airplane, and close enough to the ground that you could jump up and touch the wing. The course is nothing to scoff at either - all of the pylons are made of fabric like a moon bounce, so if they get clipped by a plane they'll deflate (and the pilot will get a huge penalty). Here's one pilot coming around for his second pass after hitting a pylon on the first:
And to be fair to the pilot, here's a trial run of the course flown by Paul Bonhomme of the UK (who came in second:

And here's me, just wishing I was in one of those planes...