Dutch big-air star kitesurfer Walker achieves perfect timing with Red Bull Air Race pilot Czepiela for iconic feat in South Africa
Extreme big-air kitesurfer Lasse Walker pulled off a world-first feat off Dolphin Beach in Cape Town on Thursday, January 16 when he completed a stunning jump in the water over the low-altitude plane of masterful Red Bull Air Race pilot Łukasz ‘Luke’ Czepiela.
Dutchman Walker grew up on the coast of the Netherlands, where he looked up to the exploits of local kitesurfing legends Ruben Lenten and Kevin Langeree and realised that his future lay in the sport.
After turning professional in 2015, the Noordwijk native has gone on to star at events like Red Bull Megaloop while he is known for his jumps over unexpected obstacles such as a freighter, a pier and a whale with this latest feat happening at his favourite kitesurfing spot in South Africa.
Polish pilot Czepiela caught the aviation bug at the age of six when his father took him to see an air show with the 41-year-old going on to hone his craft in the UK before winning Red Bull Air Race stops in the USA and Japan, then finishing first in the 2018 Red Bull Air Race Challenger Class.
Even though Czepiela has pulled off memorable feats before such as his iconic skyscraper plane landing on the famous helipad of Burj Al Arab Jumeirah in Dubai, this particular feat involved working with Walker closely over two years to ensure they could pull it off expertly and safely.
Walker, 29, revealed: “I was flying back from America and we had headwinds during the flight, and I actually came up with the idea: if a slow plane is now flying against the wind, I can jump over it.”
He added: “The last few years we’ve been preparing, one of the key things for me was that I can jump over Luke consistently so I’ve done thousands of jumps with height measurement devices and drones to prove that I can always clear the gap.”
The pair knew that they needed perfect timing to complete this piece of aerial history with Czepiela needing to hold the plane steady at low altitude while dealing with wind gusts of more than 50kph.
Czepiela explained: “It’s about two years now since the bullseye landing. One of the things that allowed me to land the aircraft on the helipad was the slow flight, so I have an all-in-all experience of four years of slow flying and that helped me to prepare for this project as well.”
When the conditions were ideal not far from the shoreline on Thursday, Walker soared 15 metres above the water over Czepiela’s plane in a flawless display of timing, skill and trust to cheers from the beach.
Walker, who grabbed the perfect outlet wave to jump high enough so as not to hit the plane’s propeller, enthused: “We had the perfect kicker and timing. Luke was flying low, I jumped over, did the loop with my kite, and looked straight down into the cockpit. Everything came together.”
Czepiela, who flew brilliantly directly into a tricky headwind, explained: “You’re trying not to stall it and the aircraft is not very manoeuvrable. Then I look to the front, and there’s a dude on the water with a kite above him. He pulls and flies over the plane. It was very surreal.” (Red Bull Content Pool)
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