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Flugtag: Splash Landing

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By KEVIN WALKER and SARAH HOYE

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 16, 2008

In the latest trailer for ''The Dark Knight'' — the summer blockbuster opening this weekend — Batman is shown using a pair of wings to fly through the night sky of Gotham City.

The Caped Crusader would rock at Flugtag.

Here in Tampa, local pilots are hoping to do even half was well.

At 1 p.m. Saturday, 50,000 people are expected to gather near the Tampa Bay Convention Center to watch 39 teams have a go at flying homemade aircrafts. By ''have a go,'' we mean that a team of people will push the ''plane'' off a 30-foot-high pier at the mouth of the Hillsborough River, and another team member will attempt to pilot it over the water.

That's the gist of Red Bull Flugtag USA. (Flugtag, by the way, is German for ''flying day.'') The energy drink (''it gives you wings''… get it?) has been sponsoring the competitions since 2002 in places such as Austin, Texas; Los Angeles; New York; Miami; and Nashville, Tenn. Tampa is the first stop of 2008, with events also planned in Portland, Ore., and Chicago.

Here's how it works. Teams of up to five people build a craft using any design they like. The only rule is that the plane can be no wider than 30 feet and weigh no more than 450 pounds (including the pilot).

Also, the planes can only be ''human-powered'' — which means most will reach the end of the ramp and fall straight into the water.

The winning team receives pilot training courses. Second place gets skydiving lessons, and third prize is paragliding lessons. Each team will be judged on how far it flies, the creativity of the craft and the showmanship of the crew.

The ladies from Coyote Ugly bar in Ybor City feel confident in those last two areas.

They are building a biplane in which a cowboy boot connects the upper and lower wings. They also plan to run through some of their dance routines before launching.

Christina Witwer, a 26-year-old Ohio native who has worked at Coyote Ugly for three years, is the pilot.

''I told them that the only way I would do this is if I could be the pilot,'' Witwer says. ''I'm going to make history. I'm going to be the woman who beats them all.''

Andy Reichard didn't even plan to participate in Flugtag. He simply wanted to show up as a spectator. However, he decided to build his own plane after visiting the Flugtag Web site. Reichard, an in-flight refueler for the 91st Air Refueling Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, was inspired by his job.

''We're glorified flying gas attendants,'' he says. ''We're making a flying gas can, that's what we are, and we're just going to put wings on it. It probably won't fly. But we're going to have a crazy time.''

Ryan Clements, 34, manager of Skatepark of Tampa, says his team has a higher calling: glorifying the skateboard. One person on the team will be a skateboarder with wings. The rest of the team will be dressed as police officers trying to arrest the skateboarder.

A bit of social commentary mixed in with flying day?

Clements does note that he has been playing ''cat and mouse'' with the police for 23 years, ''and it's the same stuff now, and I'm older than the cops.''

But, he says, ''All we're doing is making light of something we find silly because we're grown men on skateboards. We could have had some serious thing, a board that flies, but that's a huge cost and takes all this time, and we're like, 'Why not be silly?'''

Reporter Kevin Walker can be reached at kwalker@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7975. Reporter Sarah Hoye can be reached at shoye@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7832.

FLUGTAG BY THE NUMBERS

1991: Year of first Flugtag in Vienna, Austria

250,000 (approximately): Largest crowd (London, 2003)

450 pounds: Heaviest acceptable weight — including pilot.

39: Teams participating in Tampa

195 feet: Longest flight ever (occurred in Europe, 2000)

155 feet: Longest U.S. flight (by Rocky Top Rocket in Nashville, 2007)

Source: Red Bull

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