Flugtag

On Sunday, I went to the Red Bull Flugtag. Flugtag means flight day or airshow. It is an event sponsored by Red Bull where participants make their own human powered gliders and are judged based off of distance, showmanship, and creativity. I had only heard about it last Friday because one of the teams was building their plane in the lab I am working in. Since I had not heard about it before Friday, I did not think it was going to be a big event. However, I was very wrong. It was a huge event! There were thousands of people there. It was held in the docks/harbour where it looked like fairly large ships could dock. There was a platform about 30 feet off of the water where the gliders would go off into the water. The whole event lasted from I think 11 to 5. It was very entertaining to watch. The competitors were dressed up to the theme of their plane. Each group started by speaking a little bit about their plane. Then some music would play, and the group would dance to it. After the music stopped, the pilot would get in the plane and the group would push it off of the platform. Most of the planes did not go very far. They basically just fell off of the edge. There was one plane that was actually shaped like a rock; you knew that it wasn’t getting very far. The group that was from Hochschule Bremen looked like they were going to do very well and actually fly. However, there was such a strong crosswind, that the plane was blown off the side of the platform. I was also able to meet one of my new friends and hang out with her. All in all, it was a really fun day.