High Winds At Flugtag

More than 125,000 people watched as 38 teams pushed crafts off a 30-foot bridge into the Hillsborough River in Tampa, Florida, at this year’s Red Bull Flugtag. High winds of up to 32 mph made the Saturday event all the more interesting. “When we got up on the ramp, a gust of wind came over the top of the Convention Center and snapped our right wing,” said Keith Humphrey, the pilot of Willy Wonka’s Amazing Flying Adventure team from St. Petersburg. After repairing the wing with a broom and some duct tape, Humphrey went on to fly his team’s craft 50 feet, winning the competition. The same crew won in 2008, the last time the Flugtag visited Tampa. Other teams didn’t do so well in the wind. The 2nd Basemen team of Tampa built a giant pink bra as their craft, which went crashing straight down after launching. The event was the only Flugtag in the United States this year. The event’s name is German and translates into “flying day.” The first Flugtag took place in Austria in 1992.