A Flugtag (German: flight day, airshow) is an event in which competitors attempt to fly in homemade flying machines. The flying machines are usually launched off a pier about 30 ft 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.
Note the word "rarely" and you must be wondering why the heck do they do that? Well, to top it all this year at Austin, we had teams coming from as far as Minnesota and Canada to participate in this crazy event which has a team peforming for barely 5 minutes, and all they do is perform a crazy act and dash - they dive into the water. Points are awarded based on numerous factors including their attire, their wierd acts, their model and the final dash!
Thousands of people gathered and I was one among them to get a glimpse of what was happening. To sum it all it was fun, though a li'l wierd since I hadn't seen anything of this sort previously. We had rotating models, we had Andre the Giant and Gliders, et al all plunging 30 ft down in Town Lake. Yeah, fun it was. The pic below defines it all (Courtesy Gaurav)..
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