British Airways teamed up with South African rugby player, Bryan Habana, to celebrate the new A380 service between London and the Commonwealth capital of Johannesburg. Habana is well known for his speed and gained international fame when he raced a cheetah in 2007 to help increase awareness of the animals near extinction; this campaign was also part of an ad for Sketchers. Yet this week, Habana took on a new challenge, he raced an A380 down a runway!
The muscular Habana is 5’9” and weighs in at 209 lbs., but he is tiny compared to the 807,000 pound super jumbo jet that is 79 feet tall and has a wingspan of over 262 feet! Can the two legged Habana beat the A380 with four Trent 900 Rolls-Royce engines? Each engine produces 70,000 pounds of thrust which rolls down the runway at 140 mph before taking off towards the sky where speeds quickly increase to nearly 600 mph!
Watch the video to find out who won!
WOW! What an amazing race! Habana had people rooting for him and against him, some thought he would win and others were certain he wouldn’t. This was truly a test of man versus machine and in this case, my intuition was wrong!
