One of the many benefits of a helicopter is that you can land it on the helipad of your favorite office building or hotel—or the infield of the Indy 500. However, if you’ve got the skills of one Red Bull pilot and a penchant for breaking records, you could simply land your plane there instead.
Red Bull Air Race pilot Luke Czepiela is known for his flying skill and his thirst for impressive stunts. That led Czepiela to set himself the goal of landing on the helipad on the side of the Burj Al Arab hotel. Per Red Bull’s chronicle of the event, the pad measures just 88 feet in diameter and is located 695 feet above the ground. Just 65 feet of that diameter is actually usable as a surface for a touchdown. Sticking the landing would score Czepiela a place in the history books, with the record for landing on the world’s shortest runway.
Achieving the feat required the utmost from both plane and pilot. For the plane, CubCrafters provided a heavily-customized Carbon Cub for the job. The plane was put on a heavy diet, with steel fasteners swapped out for titanium items wherever possible. Other components like the seats and wheels were also swapped out…
