Life Lived

I had the opportunity today to go to Red Bull’s only United States stop for their Flugtag event in 2015. Flugtag means “flying day” in German and Red Bull has been putting on these events around the world since 1991. This was the third time that Red Bull has held a Flugtag in Portland, OR. I read somewhere that the published attendance was 86,000 though I believe there were many more on the bridge and in the river that added to that.

The idea behind Flugtag is to see how far a human powered (pushed) contraption can fly off of the end of a “flight deck” before hitting the water below. However, winning a Flugtag is not only about distance. There is a panel of judges that score the competitors on creativity and showmanship in addition to distance.

I had a chance to walk around some of the teams earlier in the day before the actual “flying” started. The team members were already trying to exhibit their showmanship as event goers and Red Bull media crews wandered the “Hanger” area. In some cases the teams were actually giving out souvenirs to entice people to vote for them for the People’s Choice award by tagging their team name to a Twitter or Instagram posting.

There was a fish, an eagle and a Portland Trailblazers themed team.

I also learned that cows, dogs and shoes do not really fly…

While I was there the craft and team that seemed to get the loudest cheers was the Air Pug entry. I am not so sure about the pilot’s dismount though.

This year’s Flugtag distance winner was the entry named “I Dream of Jeannie” which flew 84 feet. It was a contraption that once brought out onto the flight deck the team used a hand crank to raise the magic carpet off of the ground. Then the pilot began his launch off of the carpet as the team pushed the entire craft forward. With his feet leaving the carpet the pilot was able to “soar” further with little weighing him down.

Shortly after the team from Zappos attempted to fly that shoe off of the flight deck we were directed to watch the sky as the Red Bull flying team was making an approach from above. I thought that this was the end of the even so I left knowing that I could find out who won later. However, this was not really the scheduled end of the event.          

Evidently there were so many personal water craft in the river at the event site that commercial river traffic could not get through. I had heard the announcers saying over and over that the people in the river need to keep the “shipping channel clear” but did not realize that it really was congested. One of the commercial vessels called and complained to the Coast Guard who pulled Red Bulls permit immediately leaving a number of teams, including one that was going for the record of 280+ feet, on the shore without launching. Of course, as you can imagine, these teams were not happy with that outcome and feel that the river could have been cleared while the even continued.

Would I attend one of these again? Yes.