Kirby Chambliss

Kirby Chambliss (born October 18, 1959 in Corpus Christi, Texas) is an American world champion aerobatic and air race pilot who raced in the Red Bull Air Race World Series under the Red Bull brand.

Kirby Chambliss
Chambliss in 2010
Born (1959-10-18) October 18, 1959
Nationality United States
Spouse(s)Kellie Chambliss
Websiteteamchambliss.com

Biography

Chambliss racing in Perth, Western Australia in 2006
Chambliss competing at the 2017 Red Bull Air Race of Chiba

Chambliss was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, United States. As a boy, he wanted to be a pilot. Chambliss became inspired by watching his father professionally skydive growing up, and was fascinated with the aerial stunts the plane would undergo while chasing the divers as they fell.[1] During his high school years, he fueled aircraft to earn money. By December 1975, at the age of 16, Chambliss debuted in solo flying after formal flight training,[1] and earned his private license the following March. In the beginning, he earned his living as a certified flight instructor and then as a night freight pilot.

His later job as a business jet pilot enabled him in 1985 to take aerobatic flight training and to buy his own aerobatic plane. Winning top honors in his very first contest, Chambliss worked his way up to the elite "unlimited" level.[1] In 1997, he became member and then captain[2] of the US Aerobatic Team. He won five U.S. national championships and 13 medals at the world championships. He holds the title 2000 Men's Freestyle World Champion,[1] and has logged over 27,000 flying hours. In 2013, Chambliss lost power performing a high Alpha pass at the Illopango El Salvador Airshow. Chambliss exited his aircraft with minor injuries after a forced landing on a rocky embankment.[3]

Chambliss enjoys performing in traditional airshows throughout the year when he is not training or competing. Since 2003, he takes part at the international aerobatic competition Red Bull Air Race World Series as a member of the Red Bull team along with his teammate Hungarian Péter Besenyei. He was the champion of 2004,[2] and finished the 2006 Series as the champion again with four wins of eight rounds in his Zivko Edge 540 aircraft.[2] To stay in shape for enormous g-forces and exact timing, he runs four miles five days a week.

He lives with his wife and fellow pilot, Kellie, and their daughter, Karly Nicole, at the Flying Crown Ranch in Arizona, United States.

On January 24, 2020. One of Kirby’s planes was involved in a fatal aircraft crash at Iztapa Airport in Escuintla while under control of his friend Steve Andelin. Steve and two ground spectators were killed in the crash [4].

Racing record

Complete Red Bull Air Race World Championship results

Kirby Chambliss
at the Red Bull Air Race World Series
Year 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Points Wins Rank
2003
DNP

3rd
4 0 3rd
2004
1st

1st

2nd
17 2 1st
2005
9th

4th

4th

DNS

2nd

2nd

2nd
21 0 3rd
2006
1st

3rd

1st

CAN

1st

5th

3rd

1st

3rd
38 4 1st
2007
4th

6th

4th

3rd

CAN

5th

5th

2nd

5th

2nd

CAN

6th
28 0 4th
2008
5th

3rd

1st

CAN

4th

1st

12th

2nd

CAN

8th
46 2 4th
2009
9th

12th

3rd

3rd

8th

5th
34 0 4th
2010
6th

8th

5th

3rd

3rd

6th

CAN

CAN
41 0 4th
Series not held between 2011 and 2013
2014
11th

10th

9th

4th

10th

10th

11th

7th
7 0 10th
2015
DNS

7th

11th

10th

12th

3rd

11th

12th
9 0 11th
2016
4th

6th

3rd

4th

9th

8th

14th

CAN
30.25 0 8th
2017
11th

4th

8th

1st

1st

4th

6th

10th
53 2 4th
2018
3rd

12th

13th

10th

3rd

7th

8th

3rd
34 0 6th
2019
8th
11 0 8th
Total 229 8

Legend:

  • CAN: Cancelled
  • DNP: Did not participate
  • DNS: Did not show
  • DQ: Disqualified
  • NC: Not classified
gollark: Actually, no, that would still be really slow, I'll just go download a replacement.
gollark: Anyway again, according to netdata this is mostly waiting for IO, so my genius™ idea is to just find a spare 150GB on my server's less glacially slow internal disk, copy the *entire* archive over, and extract that one smallish file.
gollark: Anyway, my idea is cool and good™.
gollark: Apparently, alcohol?
gollark: SQLar™ compresses files individually, thus bad. *But* if you just batch files into chunks of 32MB or so and compress those, this is efficiency.

References

  1. Cunningham, Ross. "Flight Fest to feature national aerobatic champion". Matagorda County Advocate, June 30, 2005, p. 3E. Retrieved on May 25, 2013.
  2. Main, Tyler L. "Born with wings - Red Bull flyer Kirby Chambliss shares experience, life, career before base air show" Archived February 24, 2013, at the Wayback Machine. Marine Corps Base Hawaii, August 6, 2010. Retrieved on May 25, 2013.
  3. "Chambliss Reportedly OK After Crash in El Salvador". Archived from the original on December 30, 2013. Retrieved December 30, 2013.
  4. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/232428. Aviation Safety Database. Last updated 25 January 2020. Retrieved 26 January 2020
Sporting positions
Preceded by
Péter Besenyei
Red Bull Air Race World Series Champion
2004
Succeeded by
Mike Mangold
Preceded by
Mike Mangold
Red Bull Air Race World Series Champion
2006
Succeeded by
Mike Mangold
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.