Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe riders launch aircraft with over 6500w of power

The "Peloton Takeoff" project saw the riders generate a massive 6,500 watts of collective power, accelerating the glider to 54 km/h along a 1,500-metre runway before it took flight and reached an altitude of 100 metres.

Team members Florian Lipowitz, Nico Denz, Jordi Meeus, Tim Van Dijke, Laurence Pithie, Adrien Boichis, Davide Donati, and Gijs Schoonvelde pedalled in a specially designed 'Husky formation' for approximately 90 seconds to achieve the launch.

"When I first heard about this project, I thought it wasn't realistic," said Florian Lipowitz in the team's press release about the combination of cycling and aviation. "Launching a plane? Completely impossible. There has never been anything like this in cycling before."

The feat required extensive technical innovation, particularly the development of a custom harness system that connected the riders to the aircraft. Dan Bigham, Head of Engineering at Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, explained the challenge.

"The harness was a critical element, something that simply did not exist before. We spent countless hours developing it, and that work allowed us to make history with Peloton Takeoff," Bigham said.

Reb Bull's engineering team calculated power requirements for the attempt while aiming to exceed the minimum threshold. "From the data and our models, we knew it would take ~500watts from each rider to launch the plane, but we did not want to stop there. Every watt more meant more altitude for the plane. Breaking records is one thing. But making a record, achieving something unprecedented, is in a whole different league," Bigham added.

The ambitious project required a full year of preparation and planning before the successful flight could take place, with the engineering team working meticulously to perfect all elements of the human-powered aircraft launch.

The achievement represents yet another boundary-pushing endeavour from Red Bull, a brand known for sponsoring extreme human performance feats across various sporting disciplines.