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Those Magnificent Men in their Crashing MachinesRed Bull Flugtag Draws Massive Crowds to Tampa
The Red Bull Flugtag, a traveling event sponsored by the energy drink manufacturer, attracted more than 100,000 people to downtown Tampa.
Named for the German phrase meaning “Flying Day,” the Red Bull Flugtag drew a huge crowd of wild enthusiasts and curious onlookers to Tampa as teams attempted to fly with stylized flying machines made from scratch. Officially sponsored by energy drink company Red Bull since 2002, the Flugtag features multiple teams attempting to sail their homemade flying machines off a specially built ramp that stands 30 ft. above a body of water. Owning to the advertisement tag for Red Bull, “Red Bull gives you wings,” teams rally to use the energy drink as the basis behind climbing into the contraption and launching it off the ramp. The rules for the Flugtag are deceptively simple. In teams of no more than five people, groups can design and make a craft using any theme they want. The crafts can be no more than 30 ft. wide and weigh no more than 450 lbs. including the pilot. For actual flight attempts, the teams can get creative and perform a skit before making their attempts; a fire and rescue team performed a mock CPR rescue before their attempt, while a group comprised of female bartenders from the Coyote Ugly saloon in Ybor City did a dance to “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” When it comes time to launch, however, all bets are off. Rules state the crafts can only be human powered, so in most cases one pilot climbs into the craft while the other members take up positions and run the craft to the end of the ramp and launch it over (and into) the river. In most cases, the team members jumped into the Hillsborough River right after the craft broke free of the ramp, regardless of how far it traveled. 39 teams of flyers, both local and as far as Memphis, competed at the Flugtag. Event goers also had to share convention center space with an anime convention taking place that same weekend. Crowds of people dressed for a day at the beach could be seen waiting for traffic stops next to anime fans dressed like Pokemon characters and the Super Mario Brothers. The turnout for the event rivaled the annual Gasparilla Invasion Festival, which averages around 50,000 people in early February. More than 100,000 people descended onto the Hillsborough Riverfront in downtown Tampa for the event, which featured both local and traveling teams attempting to get their homemade contraptions to fly the farthest. Although the competition did not get underway until the early afternoon, downtown traffic had slowed to a crawl by 10 a.m. Slowed by a combination of one-way streets and numerous drivers unfamiliar with the traffic flow, lines of cars and trucks snaked through downtown as the crowds made their way to the Tampa Convention Center. To accommodate the large crowds, city officials shut down the road across the bay from the convention center so that attendees not wanting to chance downtown could see the Flugtag from across the river. The crowd turnout capped off a long anticipation that has been building since early summer, when banners proclaiming the imminent arrival of the Flugtag could be seen on light posts by Raymond James Stadium and the downtown district. The Tampa show was only the first stop for this year’s set of Flugtag events. Red Bull will also be bringing the show to Portland and Chicago later this year.
The copyright of the article Those Magnificent Men in their Crashing Machines in Aviation is owned by Joe Harless. Permission to republish Those Magnificent Men in their Crashing Machines in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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