Taking Red Bull wings

LONDON, England (AP) -- Mike Mangold flies Boeing 767s out of LAX for work. For fun, he prefers to fly a Zivko Edge 540 around aerial obstacle courses at speeds of up to 248.5 mph as part of the Red Bull Air Race World Series.
“It’s two different jobs,” Mangold said Thursday ahead of this Sunday’s race, the first in London. “Flying the 767 is a
management job getting people safely from A to B. When you fly these things, it’s fun.”
The pilots face off in a series of one-on-one matches judged on speed and precision in a knockout format that leads to a final showdown.
This means each stage-winner will have won four races where the slightest error might not just be the difference between winning and losing, but life and death.
“The whole thing is dangerous,” the 55-year-old Mangold said. “You’re flying over water, there’s no place
to land, you’re a couple of meters over the surface, fast turning with a lot of Gs.”