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Flugtag, Human Powered Flying Machine Competition 104

Posted by CmdrTaco from the does-falling-to-your-death-count dept.
Mike Lohse writes "Redbull is promoting its human-powered flying competition called Flugtag in San Francisco. Looks like creativity wins. The rules? Less than 30 feet wide, less than 450 lbs., only human power for propulsion. Applications are due August 20th, applicants are selected August 27th, and the competition is October 26th in San Francisco. Get sketching..."
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Flugtag, Human Powered Flying Machine Competition More

Flugtag, Human Powered Flying Machine Competition

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  • Silly me (Score:2, Funny)

    by jbarket ( 530468 )
    I thought it was *Redbull* that gave you wings!

  • Only human power, eh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @02:23PM (#4046617) Homepage

    Does spending a week winding up a huge rubber band count?
    • Anyone remember a British TV series in the 70s where contestants had to build a device powered by one rubber band to carry one medium-sized hen's egg as far as possible?

      How slowly or quickly the device moved was irrelevant - the issue was distance on a limited energy supply.

      • I'm guessing the egg had to remain intact? Otherwise launching it with a catapult of some sort would probably win hands-down.
        • That's right. The egg had to stay uncracked.

          The devices were quite ingenious (the idea of the show was to popularise engineering) and generally had a kind of cradle of wire and some very light plastic wheels. Some of the things trundled along for ages quite successfully at very low speeds like a couple of yards a minute.

          Oh, and I think the makers could rely on the smooth, heavy-duty rubber floor of a TV studio. Traction or terrain surprises were not part of the challenge.

      • I remember that program, professor Heinz Wolfe presented it. Sort of like a 70's version of Scrapheap Challenge, but for boffins and REAL geeks only ;-)

        Here's a link to some info about it... [qwertyuiop.co.uk]
        • Yes it was sad, because they had two series based on (I think) distance and speed records for the rubber band and egg in the first half of each show and then some kind of there-and-then challenge for the second half.

          Once, after a couple of runs, they had run out of egg-and-rubber-band things to do as the running theme linking each week, the name started to look a bit silly.

          Heinz had to wear a bow tie of course, so he could be a funny professor on television.

    • Or how about an engine that runs on the rended fat and bones of Microsoft executives?
  • If there are bonus points for going under weight, I would just run naked and flap my arms. Might lose points for "Lack" or flight, but bonus points for wieght...no? ok then

  • Great Slogan (Score:2, Funny)

    by MrHat ( 102062 )
    "You'll laugh, you'll fly... just not very far."

    I guess if you're going to fall to a horrible bloody death, it pays to have a sense of humor about it. :)
  • too funny - check out the videos of previous Flugtag's on the linked website.

    My fave is the Red Baron mock-up that flew, oh about.... 4 feet (1.26m for you Euros)
  • ...with or without wings, so call me a ground loving elf then?

  • "No drinking Redbull for a period of 12 hours before the competition."

  • Interesting specifications... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @02:47PM (#4046730)
    "Less than 30 feet wide,"

    Human-powered flight with a smaller wingspan than most gasoline-powered planes? Ouch. IIRC, the guy who flew over the English Channel had something like 50 feet to play with.

    "less than 450 lbs"

    With a wingspan like that I would certainly hope so!

    • Re:Interesting specifications... (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The only thing you could possibly hope to build is some sort of glider. 30 feet wingspan is too small though and you can't get enough power out of a human to get any kind of speed to generate lift. Sounds like this is just another stupid competition that no one takes seriously. Now, remove the weight limit and allow for unlimited span and we'd see some neat shit. Lots of gears and a bicycle style arrangement for peddling with a HUGE wingspan out of lightweight material. That'd work well.
    • What do microlights and hang-gliders weigh?

      And I thought human-powered flight over short distances like a hundred feet or so with altered microlights was already well established since the 80s.

      Was I imagining all that? Too much caffeine?

      • Gliders of any sort aren't flying, they're falling with class (to paraphrase Buzz Lightyear). Note that they generally have specifications that say how many inches down they fall per feet of forwawrd flight.

        As for ultralights, they only became possible with modern advances that maximized the hp-per-pound of modern Otto cycle engines.

        You can do human-powered flight (somebody used it to fly over the English Channel in the 80's, but I'm too lazy to Google it), but it's going to be... interesting with such a small wingspan.
        • Thanks for clearing up my fuddled memory there.

          So by limiting the wingspan Redbull really is deliberately guaranteeing itself a cheery contest of comical would-be-flying contraptions for publicity purposes, rather than sponsoring a boringly earnest event where people might bring machines that might actually work?

        • Well the first ultralights were various hang gliders with snowblower/lawnmower engines attatched. and hang gliders are certainly light enough, they can be backpacked in and out, also wingspan wouldn't be much of a problem. You would have to use an older topped version to get the wingspan right though. And if you can fit a powered booster [pegasusaviation.co.uk] into 21kg, surely you fit a sort of messed up pedal system with much more to play with.

          Of course the "contest" isn't serious but it is doable.
          • Aha.

            Doable? Perhaps for a bit of extra challenge one of the Swedenborg scholars should try entering the contest with an updated version of that early-18th-century saucer-shaped glider-looking thing of his. I've seen their updated models, but never heard of them getting together with new lightweight materials and going in for contests.

            Swedenborg's design is probably unstable - has anyone checked that?

    • Lawn Chair Balloon Flight Link [earthlink.net]

      Photo of Lawn Chair Balloon Flight LONG BEACH, Calif, July 2 (AP) A truck driver with 45 weather balloons rigged to a lawn chair took a 45-minute ride aloft to 16,000 feet today before he got cold, shot some balloons out and crashed into a power line, the police said.
      • This does have me thinking: weight is only a function of your mass and density relative to the medium you're in. A human powered plane with a helium ballon above it could have more than 204.55Kg mass but still weigh less than 450lbs. Or, if the balloon was big enough and the craft light enough, you could get it to the point where you would only have to create enough lift for yourself and maybe a few pounds on the plane so it doesn't float off when grounded.

        One of the problems with the two helium chair incidents was that the craft+pilot were lighter than air and thus were difficult to control. With being close to lighter than air and the ability to decide to generate enough lif tor not, the flights would be more successful.
    • Glider = 100lbs Drunken fat bastard = 350lbs

    • Re:Interesting specifications... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Russ Steffen ( 263 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:35PM (#4047015) Homepage

      Well, Flugtag is not about advancing the field of Aviation. It's about drinking until crashing into the Bay in a "glider" made of milk cartons and bailer twine while wearing a chicken costume sounds like a good idea.

    • "less than 450 lbs"

      I guess that rules out my wheelbarrel full of bricks design.

      I was looking forward to tying with alot of these people. :-)

  • Flugtag in Dublin (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gomezlaundry ( 560583 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @02:51PM (#4046753)
    Red Bull sponsored one of these last year in Dublin. It was quite amusing. It was held in a harbour inlet with a big platform over the water. The flying/gliding machines didn't really go that far. I think 3 or 4 metres won. The best was a bunch of Finnish guys who were in Dublin having a big piss up before a guy got married. They heard about Flugtag, built something on short notice and made asses of themselves along with everyone else. Quality. Maybe the SF people will 'fly' further that the Dubliners.
  • We allready had this a few times in Austria. It's a lot of fun. I think it's cool that they took the german title Flugtag which means "fly-day".
    Maybe they just want you to work all day and night (that's where Red Bull comes in) to finish this project before deadline.
    But hey, they will have free Red Bull there!!! I'm sure.
  • they have combined this event with the "International Chicken-Dance Competition". It was discovered that the movements were essentially the same.

  • Rather limiting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gerardrj ( 207690 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:00PM (#4046800) Journal
    I don't much like the "send your application we'll tell you if you can compete" idea. They should judge all entries that show up for competition.
    I have a strange feeling this isn't so much about competing to see who can build the best human power flying craft, but mora thinly veiled marketing event that they hope to control as much as possible.

    I'll bet that the design contraints are there so they can more easily fit the vehicle on a tow-trailer and take it around the country with just a few people as crew. I'll bet the designs are being avaulated for advertising space and visual impact on a crowd rather than functional design.

    Then again maybe I've just spend too much time in the presence of marketing companies.
    • I think it's more of a "Let's have fun and throw Redbull branding all over the place." This is what marketing *should* be.

      • Yep, rather than branding and controlling existing culture, they're contributing to the world in which we all live.

        IMHO, the moment censors first started to consider the opinions of advertisers, the advertising model of revenue failed society.

        It's a shame that the profits are so good that few people have an interest in letting people know that our culture has been castrated in the best interests of big-business.

    • Battlebots this aint. Battlebots IS the product. Redbull IS the product. Flugtag is not, only part of the advertising.

  • Well, anything to at least give you the opportunity to wreak vengeance against those damn pigeons is a good start (like the ad campaign).

    Although competitors would have to be careful if flying over large crowds of people, things would get a bit messy.

  • All I need is a few tins of baked beans!

  • cancelled last year (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:15PM (#4046889)
    They hosted one last year in SF, ran commercials for it etc. Then they cancelled it at the last minute with no notification. Many people showed up and there was a lot of confusion, as they hadn't even bothered to post signs saying it had been cancelled. The website was even down, so there wasn't even anyway to get official information. We just kind of meandered around hoping that someone official would show up, but it never happened.

    Pretty lame.
    • Last year's contest was cancelled because falling out of the sky suddenly became terribly unfunny on September Eleventh, 2000. So said a friend who was doing setup for the event.

      I thought he'd said they went ahead and had some sort of party instead though.

  • fluck this (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:17PM (#4046899) Journal
    All this flap over flying floppy flappers failing and falling over flailing flippers makes me want to flip off these floundering floating flightless floor finding flunkies. Then again it looks like they are having flukey flakey flun, I mean fun.

  • Blimps? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kafir ( 215091 ) <qaffir@hotmail.com> on Saturday August 10, 2002 @03:41PM (#4047052)
    Lighter-than-air would seem to be the way to go.

    Strap yourself to a miniature blimp, wear some fins for propulsion and steering- your distance would be limited only by the judges' patience, weight would difficult to measure- and unless they add the weight of displaced air to everyone else's total, they should count it as negative(your body weight).

    Human powered
    Less than 30 ft wide
    Less than 450 lbs.-

    seems to fit all the rules.

  • heh (Score:2, Funny)

    by zapfie ( 560589 )
    Less than 30 feet wide, less than 450 lbs., only human power for propulsion.

    I don't suppose I could enter myself in the contest..

  • human powered (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    human powered, can I liposuck all the fat from some fat person and run an engine off the fat oil?
    That's human powered .. isnt it?

  • It's a joke, but I have to point it out... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by tlambert ( 566799 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @04:38PM (#4047341)
    It's a joke.

    You are not expected to fly.

    It's more about "how many drunken idiots can we get to strap drowning machines to themselves and jump into the San Francisco Bay?"

    The Gossamer Condor, which won the Kremer Prize in 1977 is, so far, the smallest human powered aircraft. It has a wingspan of 70 feet. The Gossamer Albatross, which crossed the English Channel, and won the second Kremer Prize, has a wingspan of 90 feet.

    A wingspan of 30 feet is pretty mugh guaranteed to not result in flight, if the wings alone are intended to provide the lift, with just human power.

    The weight limit lets out most practicaly designs, such as a neutral buoyancy ornithopter with a helium lifting baloon with a 30 foot maximum width (hint: search for "one person helium balloon").

    -- Terry
    • Well

      The reason planes like the gossamer condor use long wingspans is that lift coefficient is highly dependent on aspect ratio. Aspect ratio is defined as the wingspan^2/wing area.

      You could build a bi/triplane with a similar aspect ratio and a 30 ft wingspan. You could also increase the effective aspect ratio by adding winglets, among other things.

      I am sure that I could design an airplane capable of succeeding in these circumstances, if I had a few more weeks and a bit of funding. However, notice the game isn't to fly- it is to not fly and do it spectacularly. My insurance doesn't cover that.
      • If you can build one, more power to you: do it. You will win in at leastone category, and may win overall for effectiely making fun of the making fun.

        Given the cost, and the lack of a long enough launching/landing strip, I think it's a non-issue.

        -- Terry

  • Lo-tech (Score:3, Funny)

    by MadFarmAnimalz ( 460972 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @04:43PM (#4047362) Homepage
    Wings? Who needs wings?

    500 bucks worth of canned beans oughtta do it.

    • I'm not sure you can get in under the weight limit by doing that... :]
    • (* Who needs wings? 500 bucks worth of canned beans oughtta do it. *)

      You just gave me an idea for Burrito Airlines. The only airline where the meal is served *before* leaving the ground.

  • Combining stories (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pete-classic ( 75983 ) <hutnick@gmail.com> on Saturday August 10, 2002 @05:04PM (#4047455) Homepage Journal
    How about human powered flight + ultra-light carbon fiber flywheels?

    Peddle at a leisurely pace for 30 minutes, press the "takeoff" button, then continue peddling enough to keep the "fuel gauge" (energy in the flywheel) up to a reasonable level. Have a computer control prop output to maintain a minimal airspeed to conserve energy.

    I'm no engineer, but I think this could really work.

    -Peter
  • There is no way in hell that anybody could anything significant with 40ft or less. I'm not a pilot or even terribly proficient with physics, but I don't imagine it would take much to demonstrate that the output necessary to provide enough airflow over 40ft of even the most promising surface to attain sufficient lift would be beyond human ability, even if three 80lb Armstrongs were behind the yoke. And I'm assuming this is a vertical limit as well as a horizontal one, so that rules out things like balloon assist.

    Some examples of the state of HPV flight include:

    Velair [skytec-engineering.de]
    Daedelus [nasa.gov]
    Musculair [nasg.com]
    Light Eagle [nasg.com]
    Sakuzo [nasg.com]

    40ft. Give me a break. Literally.
    • The wingspan of the velair was only 22.7m, the sakuzo 24.5m, and the musculair 22m. These both took off from a flat runway, with no launching ramp or platform. If your goal isn't sustained powered flight, you don't need the extrememly high efficiencies afforded by high aspect ratio wings (27-35) and can get by with lower AR.

  • It's maybe a bit late, but tomorrow (Sunday 11th) is the Bognor Birdman [birdman.org.uk] (warning: Flash-only site) competition in Bognor Regis, Sussex, UK.

    There's a little info sans flash here [chillisauce.co.uk]

    The prize money goes up to GBP25,000 (around USD37,000, I think) for anyone able to broach the 100m (~330ft) barrier. The closest so far seems to be 89.2m...So there is incentive for some "real" engineering apart from the obligatory 'take-the-piss' entries :)

    • Well, the flying went well despite relatively high winds (18 knots or so) and a little rain - the weather was pretty reasonable for the UK summer!

      There were 8 'serious' entrants, and out of those only three had actually built their bird from scratch; the others were modified (apparently!) hanggliders. Unfortunately the hang gliders took all the prizes for distance and time spent in the air - GBP1000 for farthest flight, and GBP100 for longest in the air, both of which went to the same bloke. He managed to coax his hang glider a whole 38.4 metres, taking 9.6seconds.

      My mate's entry [flyer.co.uk] only flew 12.8 metres, but that placed him 6th out of the 8 serious entries (5th flew 14metres, 7th flew 6metres). For a first attempt, and for having to fly without half the aircraft, he was quite chuffed! (The major redesign was because the safety judges decided it was too windy for his undercarriage arrangement to be safe.)

  • width restriction (Score:4, Funny)

    by Alsee ( 515537 ) on Saturday August 10, 2002 @07:05PM (#4047954) Homepage
    Less than 30 feet wide

    My entry will be 26 feet in width and 68 feet long.

    Oh, and by the way, it flys sideways.

    -
  • Maybe someone can explain it to me, I just don't understand why people like Red Bull. It tastes like ass, and yet these companies are shoveling in the money from this and other small-can-shaped "energy" drinks.

    Ingredients: carbonated water, sucrose, glucose, sodium citrate, taurine, glucoronolactone, caffeine, inositol, niacin, D-pantothenol, pyridoxine HCL, vitamin B12, artificial flavours, colors.

    Nutrition Facts: Serving Size: 8.3 fl. oz Servings per Container: 1 Amount per serving: Calories: 113 Total Fat: 0g Sodium: 215mg Protein: 0g Total Carbohydrates: 28g Sugars: 28g


    And this costs, what two bucks? Three dollars? WTF?

    You are basically getting highly sugared water (about 5 teaspoons per can) and 80mg of caffeine, which is not that much. If this is your thing, then all the more power to you, but there are vastly cheaper ways to go about it. Personally I just go down to Kmart and buy caffeine pills: each of those is 200mg and you can buy a package of 90 of them for a few dollars. Avoid the brand names, they cost a lot more. And if it's sugar that you crave, then soda should do the trick.

    So that just leaves us with these mysterious ingredients taurine and glucuronolactone. Here is where we encounter the manufacturer's (and anyone hocking these three dollar sugar shots) claims of all sorts of "revitalization." Yeah, whatever. I have not the medical knowledge to debunk this load, but just consider that taurine is often an ingredient in baby milk formulas and that when Coca Cola was still a young company they often touted "the wonderful Coca plant and the famous Cola nut" and the "invigorating" power of its mysterious ingredients -- the secret is that there is no secret.

    So if you're truly athletic and drink Red Bull for performance, then go read a book on nutrition or sports medicine. How could a drink that's a diuretic and contains only a sip of water possibly be a good sports drink?

    Ah, the club crowd -- the company's bread and butter, although they claim otherwise (see the linked article below for a direct quote from a company representative.) Drinking alcohol with Red Bull is a poor man's speedball, caffeine's upper to alcohol's downer. I'm sure it lets you stay awake longer and drink more, and it's oh-so-trendy. I have no problem with this, but just realize that there's nothing magical or special in that $3 can.

    An excellent article on Red Bull's company background and marketing tactics, including their fling with extreme-style sports. [robwalker.net]
    • I am from Europe and do some skiing here on Red Bull's home turf (Austria). They like to turn up at the resorts, ideally up on a mountain and they do various stunts like dressing as surgeons (smocks, hat and face-mask) with syringes full of the stuff which they squirt into the mouths of various people. Sometimes for free (if you're cool enough) or for money with marketing giveaways. Oh and they definitely do market vodka-red-Bull and have even seen a joint promotion. Doing these promos at sporting venues helps to promote the coolness factor and leads to a lot of people wanting to order that sh1t at the apres-ski clubs. The combination with alcohol helps to disguise the fact that it tastes disgusting.

      They do use media advertising over here (Germany), but mostly simple cartoon ads which are quite funny (not much humour in German advertiseing). Generally these are shown not on TV, but in movie theatres (younger audience again).

      Personally, I think thay have been very clever, but essentially it is a one product company. Still, so was Coke in the early days.

      The link for this particular marketing gimick is an ad where a guy in a suit on his way to work is sh1tted upon by a bird. The guy opens his briefcase, digs out a can of Red Bull and flaps his arms. He takes off flys above the bird and starts to remove his trousers to the alarm of the bird.

  • The rules state that it requires human "muscle" power. That is a bit unfortunate, but I still think that given enough human muscles, that you ought to be able to convert that to some sort of fuel to power some type of deasel engine.

    I wonder if Dr. Lector has any leftovers that can be experimented with...

  • Load it up with a half dozen big guys in the weight bucket for power.
    I think the hardest part would be finding a pilot brave enough to do it!

    It would look pretty cool too...

    Any Takers?
  • SF has a sizable hang gliding crowd. They fly from Fort Funston, among other places. There are some low-speed hang gliders that can be launched from a run, and there might, just possibly, be enough of a thermal on the bay side to get some lift.
  • The restrictions in the rules and the general tone of the web site indicate this is just a promo event for wankers to get pissed and chuck themselves off a low platform.

    REAL birdman competitions, on the other hand start with platforms a good 10 metres high and include some outstanding entrants in the human-powered division.

    I used to watch the Toriningen [nasg.com] competition that takes place on Biwa Lake in Japan. Every year the HPA division would see increasingly insane distances that would have easily won the Kramer prize if it had been a straight line. The contenstant would end up disappearing into the haze over the lake and they'd have to send a chopper to follow it as the rest of the competition went on.

    Fantastic stuff.

  • Bicycles.

    With ceramic wheels, and super-strong magnets attached to the forks.


    Just make sure you pedal fast enough to levitate.
  • The way it worked down under is that they had applicants submit a flying machine design and due to time constraints, picked the "most interesting" 40 to compete. Most interesting seemed to be a mixture of which ones would probably fly and which ones would make the best spectacle. Hence the entry which was actually a red bull sculpted from Polystyrene which spouted fire extinguiser smoke from its nostrils and butt. It just fell into the water, but because it was so cool, it won a big prize.

    Unfortunately, the launch day was very windy and the launch platform was fixed so that all competitors had to take off with a stiff tailwind. As you would expect most just could not achieve the necessary launch velocity and just plunged into the water in less than 10m. Some really interesting lightweight, professional looking gliders never got to take to the air due to the tailwind blowing them over and breaking them.

    The winner actually flew over 20m before his wing folded and dumped him. Apparently the world record for a flugtag is 86m. How the hell they did that I have no idea.

    The rules also state that no stored mechanical energy devices are permitted (springs, air-rams, rubber bands and RATO packs are strictly verboten). You can use pulleys and gears as force multipliers but the base energy source must be human muscle.

    In Auckland, the winner had an ingeniuous system of pulleys that actually got him up to a reasonable launch velocity and he did actually fly. He spent NZ$8000 on his machine (carbon fibre and mylar construction) and won $10,000 for his troubles. Big risk, big reward.
  • People here seem to be taking this so seriously, discussing the ingredients in RedBull and how much further the birdmen in Japan can fly. Is doing silly things for fun an alien concept in geekland?

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