Hannes Arch was born in
Leoben,
Austria in 1967. He grew up in
Trofaiach, attended the BORG
Eisenerz and most recently lived in the
city of Salzburg. Since the 2007 season, the state-certified mountain and ski guide has been the first Austrian participant in the
Red Bull Air Race World Championship, after winning a qualifying round in
Phoenix (
Arizona) in October 2006. He contested his first race in the series on 6 April 2007 in
Abu Dhabi (UAE), where he did not make it past the qualifying round. He achieved this for the first time in his second race in
Rio de Janeiro on April 21, finishing fourth and scoring 3 points. However, he did not score any further points during the rest of the season, which meant he finished 10th overall. His second season in the
Red Bull Air Race World Championship in 2008 was much more successful: in the first five competitions, Arch achieved two second and third places as well as a fourth place, before achieving his first victory at the competition in
Budapest on 19 and 20 August. After also winning the competition in
Porto, he took the lead in the overall standings. On 1 November 2008, he was crowned World Champion of the 2008
Red Bull Air Race World Championship in
Perth,
Australia, with victory in qualifying. Arch started the 2009 season with a victory in the first event of the season in
Abu Dhabi; he achieved four podium places in six events during the season, never finished lower than fourth and ended the year as runner-up behind
Paul Bonhomme. Like most of the pilots in the series, he flew a
Zivko Edge 540. Arch has also made a name for himself in base jumping and caused quite a stir when he and
Ueli Gegenschatz performed a base jump from the north face of the
Eiger in 2000 and from the north face of the
Matterhorn in 2003. Since 2010, he was in a relationship with German
stuntwoman and action model
Miriam Höller. In 2014, he was sponsored by YAVER under the leadership of Yaver Demir and achieved an impressive second place at the
Red Bull Air Race in
Abu Dhabi, completing the final 4 round with a time of 56.776 seconds. In 2014,
AKG Acoustics launched a professional
headset for pilots, which Arch played a key role in developing. ==Death==