Last Saturday Washington DC hosted its first Red Bull Flugtag (German: flight day) in the National Harbor, in a cloudy and rainy day. For the ones who don’t know what is Flugtag, this is a good definition taken from Wikipedia:
Red Bull Flugtag (German: flight day, airshow) is an event organized by Red Bull in which competitors attempt to fly home-made, size- and weight-limited, human-powered flying machines (max 10m/30 ft, 150 kg/330 lbs). The flying machines are usually launched off a pier about 30 feet (9.1 m) high into the sea (or suitably sized reservoir of water). Most competitors enter for the entertainment value, and the flying machines rarely fly at all.
Indeed, most of those flying machines didn’t fly at all, but there where others with weird shapes that made you think they were not going to fly but actually did an impressive performance. And that is what makes this event so great, you never know what’s going to happen.
The Opening
The event was opened by two skydivers who jumped from a plane, and glided with their parachutes to land in the flugtag platform with great precision.
The Platform
The Show
These are some photos of the best “landings”, although most of the times they were direct impacts on the river.
The Weather Channel:
Team PGFD:
Vermont Lumberjacks:
Made in ‘murica:
This was the people’s choice winner, and actually one of my favorite landings.
There are more photos to come, I’ll post new blog articles in the following days.
