Red Bull - Flugtag

                                                           Photos: Rutger Pauw

Roundhay Park, Leeds, July 2011

When amateurs take to the air anything can happen. Especially if they do it in homemade flying machines. It may just be a 'bit of fun' but someone has to ensure that it stays fun.

Red Bull's Flugtag invites members of the public to build flying machines and compete to see how far they can 'fly' before falling out of the sky. The landing strip is the lake thoughtfully located below EventServ's launch ramp to soften the inevitable slpash landing.

TESS continued their long relationship with Red Bull by helping plan all the safety elements of the event. In addition to the usual public and production safety required for a large scale event, TESS  produced guidelines on the design of the flying machines. This was in part to discourage some of the more idiotic ideas including explosives and liquid fuel propellants, sharp metal components and strangulation hazards, as well as ensuring that the structure would stay on one piece long enough to make it into the lake.

The water safety team comprised three rescue boats, a team of divers to free any 'fliers' trapped in the machines and a team to recover the machines from the water so that the next contestant could make a splash.

A splendid event was successfully concluded with some spectacular landings on water, no injuries and twenty thousand delighted punters. The winning team managed a 16 metre semi-horizontal plummet.

Meanwhile in sheds all over Britain teams of aerial pioneers are designing the next generation of DIY flying machine for the next Red Bull Flugtag.

Happy landings.