Saturday, July 24, 2010

Minneapolis. Terre Haute duo heading to Red Bull Flugtag Think.




TERRE HAUTE - Great things are constrained to happen when friends block out flying contraptions over some beers. "In theory, I’ll be fine," Greg Otto said Sunday afternoon, status next to the scallop pig and "flying barn" he’ll guide off a 30-foot excursion deck this coming Saturday. Otto and his company from the Barn2Fly crew will settle their conveyance to Harriet Island, Minn., this weekend for the Red Bull Flugtag Twin Cities competition. Flugtag means "flying day" in German, and the effect now nearing 20 years in majority challenges contestants to shape and flier homemade flying machines off a 30-foot retreat deck in hopes of soaring through the sky, or falling into ditch-water down below.



Only 37 teams were selected out of 500 applicants for the Twin Cities contest, Otto said. Red Bull Flugtags will be hosted in Long Beach, Calif., in August and Philadelphia in September. Since the beforehand debate was hosted in Vienna, Austria, in 1991, 80 events have been conducted worldwide, attracting as many as 300,000 spectators to a show in London. Otto competed in a 2008 Flugtag in Chicago and said more than 80,000 came to watch.






"I survived that and I’m inane enough to do it again," he said proudly as his friends and teammates cheered. Down at Charlie’s Pub on Crawford Street, the Barn2Fly group had their flying appliance out for pageantry Sunday. Charlie’s Pub is sponsoring the team, and the crowd was showing off the medium over some drinks. "From Minneapolis to St. Louis," Clint Bright said when asked to foretoken the gap his team’s engine will sail out over Lake Harriet.



Either that, or perhaps 80 feet, he said. According to Red Bull Flugtag’s website, the separate make a notation was set at 195 feet in 2000 at an occurrence in Austria. The U.S. list was set in 2007 in Nashville, when a "flying banjo" made it 155 feet.



Teams are judged on three categories – bolting distance, creativity and showmanship. "One of the other teams is a Jetsons-mobile," Bright said, referring to the 1960s futuristic cartoon. Other machines are built around various themes, one of which will be a Tiger Woods-like integrity being chased off the plane deck in a taunt Escalade by several blonde women, he said.



The Barn2Fly yoke has what Otto described as a "hillbilly wagon" and papier mache rose pig, all fastened to a stocky hanglider. The party will act a 30-second skit involving state trip the light fantastic melody "Cotton Eye Joe" where teammate Kim Yates, cane fishing hop-pole in hand, will outstrip the pig with a catch baited with a Red Bull power tot can out onto the airliner deck. "And then basically the hillbilly wagon and pig will settle away and I’ll race off the deck into the untamed indelicate yonder," Otto said, adding, "We all corrosion lifejackets and helmets." Otto, 36, clockwork at Sony DADC and said he doesn’t have a uniquely machine-like background, other than a Red Bull soap caddy derby in 2007 and the 2008 Flugtag.



"I meditate the most recreation I have is the problem-solving," he said, describing the invitation of construction a flying make on a budget of about $300. "That’s bolts, wheels and duct tape," Yates acuminate out. In combining to the judging, a People’s Choice Award will be offered based on votes.

flugtag minneapolis



Fans can choose by texting "Team4" to 72855 between noontime Friday and high noon Saturday. The side has a Facebook paginate to help in that effort. "Facebook friends are a desideratum for flying," teammate Doug Horton said, proudly sporting his red Barn2Fly shirt.



Other teams competing in Minnesota incorporate the Batmoburger, Chicks-On-A-Stick, North Star Roller Girls, The Perfect Getaway and Team Griswold. Video of whilom performances is close by at the organization’s website, www.redbullflugtagusa.com. Horton said this is his key fracture at the event, and so far it’s been a lot of fun. "These are my friends," he said.



"It’s always skylarking to do compress with your friends." Brian Boyce can be reached at 812-231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.




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