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Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Flying a country mile!

I am sure all of you readers have been anxiously awaiting my report from this weekend’s Flugtag. Well I have great news to report, other then the fact that Web, Cliff and I roasted like baked chickens, it was a great time. This event was right up my alley it had everything I love…Comedy, Dance Routines, Skydivers, Elaborate Costumes, Elvis impersonators, Record breaking flights, Cavemen, The A-Team, Cigars, and of course Red Bull. I am actually not really a fan of red bull the drink but any company that can think up a marketing campaign as cool and crazy as this Flugtag thing, I salute them.

So to explain a little bit, teams of people from around the country compete to try and see who can make a completely human powered aircraft fly the furthest after tossing them off (along with a pilot) from a 30 foot platform. Each team is judged on distance of flight, creativity of craft, and style points for performance. The rules are simple. The aircraft cannot weigh more then 400lbs (pilot included), it cannot be more then 30ft wide, and must be entirely powered by human muscle.

We were able to walk along the “Hanger” and check out all these great teams. I have included a few photos below of our encounters. The coolest part of the day was seeing a new North American record set by a team from Kentucky. They flew their aircraft 155ft! In Flugtag terms that is a huge distance. The previous North American record was 85ft, and the World record is 192ft, so they got pretty close. It was a great time shared by about 50,000 other Nashvillians, all wondering what the heck is going on here.

A record breaking flight from the Rocky Top Rocket!





A group of cavemen from East Nashville. They were actually pretty dormant creatures and handed out cookies to the audience.



Me with the A-team…that is their van in the background. Missing from the picture is Hannibal; he is behind Murdock taking a call on his cell phone.



This guy was my favorite, he is this old dude, and loves these things. This is the second time he has competed and I have to say his aircraft did awful, but I give him major style points for riding the rocket Evil Knievel style right off the platform.



The Stephen Colbert – Eagle One taking off. Right before this flight all the Mini-Colbert’s on the team fought off Liberal Hippies with the power of “truthiness.” All to the Hulk Hogan theme song “I am a Real American,” and Toby Keith. It was classic Colbert, I give major Kudos to this team.

Click Here to watch the video…Colbert - Eagle One

2 comments:

Little Daddy said...

Travis,

Glad yall had a great time. What an unusual cast of characters. And they all came to Nashville on the same day? How lucky can a city get?

If I'm not mistaken you are going to something special this weekend -- want to elaborate?

Caleb said...

I love the A-Team! It was my cell phone ring on my old cell phone last year. By far, Face is the most underrated.