Where: Cape Town, South Africa
When: December 9, 2012
With: Dave and Divya
It's probably not that many people in the world who know what flugtag is. And that means even fewer know in Cape Town. I only know cause of the funny commercials Red Bull puts out every year to signal its imminent arrival. At this point, I should probably explain. Flugtag is a competition where teams of people create home-made, man-powered flying machines. They then launch their machines off a pier 10 meters high into water, and are judged based on how well they did. It's good fun to watch, and Red Bull gets to put big red bulls all over things to make for excellent advertising.
Each team is judged in three elements: performance, creativity, and flight time. This involves a little team routine on the pier at the beginning, followed by the launch of their craft and the subsequent fall/flight. The judges, who range from stunt men, to aviation experts, to models, sit in the control tower, scoring the teams and narrowing down a winner.
This year's flugtag took place in the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, and we were able to get front row seats to enjoy. We showed up mid-morning to find the event already in full swing. The first team we happened to see, the Bok Fly Boys, set an excellent tone for things to come. They made themselves a giant rugby ball which they proceeded to launch through a set of goal posts at the end of the pier. The ball tipped right into the water, where it exploded the second it hit the water. This turned out to be a more common occurrence then not, but was funny every single time.
Several of the teams formed were made up of employees from local businesses and the performance proved to be a perfect opportunity to also get some advertising in. This local coffee chain, Vida e Caffe, danced around and told the the crowd that "We will FROTH you" (to the tune of "We Will Rock You", if you hadn't guessed). Their plane looked good, until they decided to balance their pilot right on the nose of the plane. What a shock, they tipped right over into the water.
The next team did a full routine to the Captain Planet theme song. At this point, this was the best dance we had seen yet. However, why they thought a giant globe on the back of their plane would give them any aerodynamic lift is beyond me. At least it stayed in tact as it hit the water.
Halfway through the competition, a Red Bull stunt pilot named Glen Dell came flying over the waterfront to do some of his most death-defying tricks. He tumbled through the air, dive bombed, stalled out, and did tons of other tricks that completely stopped your heart, all the while talking to the crowd via his radio. Apparently he is also a pilot for South African Airways, which made me feel so much safer about flying with them.
Team Icarus was a great example of a good idea gone bad. They were supposed to be telling the Greek myth of Icarus, a man who ignored warnings and flew too close to the sun wearing wings made of wax. When they melted, he fell to his death. Sadly, this team didn't fare much better.
When: December 9, 2012
With: Dave and Divya
It's probably not that many people in the world who know what flugtag is. And that means even fewer know in Cape Town. I only know cause of the funny commercials Red Bull puts out every year to signal its imminent arrival. At this point, I should probably explain. Flugtag is a competition where teams of people create home-made, man-powered flying machines. They then launch their machines off a pier 10 meters high into water, and are judged based on how well they did. It's good fun to watch, and Red Bull gets to put big red bulls all over things to make for excellent advertising.
Each team is judged in three elements: performance, creativity, and flight time. This involves a little team routine on the pier at the beginning, followed by the launch of their craft and the subsequent fall/flight. The judges, who range from stunt men, to aviation experts, to models, sit in the control tower, scoring the teams and narrowing down a winner.
This year's flugtag took place in the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town, and we were able to get front row seats to enjoy. We showed up mid-morning to find the event already in full swing. The first team we happened to see, the Bok Fly Boys, set an excellent tone for things to come. They made themselves a giant rugby ball which they proceeded to launch through a set of goal posts at the end of the pier. The ball tipped right into the water, where it exploded the second it hit the water. This turned out to be a more common occurrence then not, but was funny every single time.
This team's theme made no sense. I think they were supposed to be fairy tale characters. They were odd, and I only remember laughing all the harder by their kooky, tutu-wearing team leader's memorable exit from her magic chariot.
The next team did a full routine to the Captain Planet theme song. At this point, this was the best dance we had seen yet. However, why they thought a giant globe on the back of their plane would give them any aerodynamic lift is beyond me. At least it stayed in tact as it hit the water.
The next team's routine was an entertaining and well executed dance that ended with them picking up a glider and running off the edge of the platform. However, where they lacked in creativity, they made up for in lift. They got farther than anyone else we'd seen at that point.
The next team had the most logical design we had seen yet, and they knew it. The guys all seemed like mildly nerdy engineers that set out to win. They positioned a detachable glider on top of a rolling cart, so that when the heavy base fell into the water, the wings would take the pilot up and away. It definitely worked and they made it pretty far, but not the anticipated world record breaking distance that they all were hoping for.
The local mini-cooper dealership tried to sneak in a bit of sucking up with their Red Bull mini-cooper flying machine. But as you can imagine, the giant can of Red Bull attached to the back of their cooper didn't provide any help in getting them off the pier.
By far my favorite team of the day was Chili Chili Bang Bang. They dressed ever-so-politically correct as a catcus, a Mexican man in a poncho with a guitar, a bull and a bull fighter. They may not have flown far, but they were easily a crowd favorite. Who doesn't smile upon seeing a giant chili pepper flying through the air ridden by a fist-pumping man in a sombrero?
The most annoying team by far was the flip flop team. Their brilliant plan was to basically create a giant slip and slide out of the pier. They took 20 minutes to lay out a giant piece of tarp and cover it with soapy water. But then, they used a really giant flip flop that had to be dragged down the runway with a person sitting on top. Shockingly, they went nowhere, toppled off the pier, and wasted a ton of time setting up for the most anti-climatic and slow moving run down the track.
Halfway through the competition, a Red Bull stunt pilot named Glen Dell came flying over the waterfront to do some of his most death-defying tricks. He tumbled through the air, dive bombed, stalled out, and did tons of other tricks that completely stopped your heart, all the while talking to the crowd via his radio. Apparently he is also a pilot for South African Airways, which made me feel so much safer about flying with them.
Back at the competition,l we saw the most exciting team of the day, the Mile High Club. Their idea was simple. A giant inflatable blob was thrown into the water. One man (the pilot) jumped down into the water and onto the front of the blob. Then his three team mates leap off the pier at the same time onto the other end, sending the pilot 50m into the air. Watching his body go soaring up through the air was definitely the most thrilling moment of the competition.
Team Icarus was a great example of a good idea gone bad. They were supposed to be telling the Greek myth of Icarus, a man who ignored warnings and flew too close to the sun wearing wings made of wax. When they melted, he fell to his death. Sadly, this team didn't fare much better.
A really unique design that fared extremely well was presented by the team Pegasus vs. Darth Vader. Yes, I agree....what?? Darth Vader seems to have tried to steal Pegasus from Hercules. However, while Darth climbs onto the back of Pegasus, Hercules jumps off the front of the pier with Pegasus' reins in hand, bucking Darth Vader off the horse's back. Darth went flying pretty far, surprisingly
The best part was that afterwards, the horse remained sitting on top of the pier. The officials of the competition didn't know what to do with him, so they tossed poor Pegasus off the side to be towed away by the clean up crew.
This team utterly disappointed me purely because they named themselves Cool Runnings, but made no references to the Jamaican bob sledding team. Their glider actually flew pretty far, but I was not pleased with their performance.
The next team had my favorite performance. The Pink Flamingoes danced around in matching flamingo costumes, and followed up with their flying craft in the shape of the pink bird. It even had a big, googly eye on it. It looked so cool flying.
The final team that we stayed to watch was the Up! team. I had to watch purely for the novelty of seeing a miniature house covered in balloons being launched off a pier. It clearly went nowhere, but made me very happy to see.
At this point, we decided to call it as there were many more hours of competition left, but we were starving. The competition carried on for a few more hours, and sadly, we didn't see any of the top finalists. However, we thorough enjoyed our view while we ate our lunch: the flugtag graveyard.
This was such a great event, and I'm so happy we were here to see it. I'll definitely be keeping tabs on the next Red Bull flugtag, cause it was amazing and I'd go back for sure.
For the rest of our trip in South Africa, click here.
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