If drinking Red Bull really gives you wings, then few pilots drank it at the Flugtag competition Saturday in Cleveland.

Most pilots and their home-built “flying” crafts plummeted 25 feet into the North Coast Harbor after being pushed or propelled by team members off a barge.

Flugtag, German for “flying day,” is a competition sponsored by Red Bull in which 25 teams designed, built and attempted to fly a craft the longest distance over water for prizes. Saturday’s competition was the eighth Flugtag competition in America.

Record breaking

One pilot, though, got enough airtime to break the American record for the furthest flight. Pilot Duji, a newscaster for 92.3 Xtreme radio, and her team, Rover’s Flying Glory, broke the 70-foot record by 8 feet.

But money was on their side. The Winking Lizard Tavern sponsored their craft, which was the most expensive in Flugtag history, costing $15,000 to build. It wasn’t just the money that gave them an advantage. Head engineer Bill Gavel of Berea had access to the blueprints that were used to build a replica of the Wright Brother’s plane.

“The theory is, theirs flies, so ours flies,” Gavel said. The team was so confident of their craft’s ability to fly, they had it duct taped to the ground before it’s flight so “it doesn’t get away.”

Failures

Other teams had more confidence in their creativity and spirit than their crafts.

Team MidPoint Mothership, a tribute to Bootsy Collins of Parliament/Funkadelic, tried to fly a craft that mimicked the P-Funk Mothership, a stage prop at Parliament’s concerts.

“Hell no, it’s not going to fly,” said team member Michael Kearns of Cincinnati before the flights. “It’s going to drop like a stone. We’re taking the fame over the glory.”

Collins was actually a judge at the event. Kearns said Collins complimented the team on their Mothership, but in the end, there was no payoff for the team. Their ship, weighing 325 pounds, dropped faster than a stone and received nothing more than applause and laughter from the audience.

Another team’s failure could have been the result of too much drinking. Team America, Oh Beautiful, built their plane out of empty beer cans. The team of four 22 year olds, estimated they used 1,000 cans, which they drank in about a month.

“We were sitting around drinking Keystone Light and noticed the red and blues (on the cans),” said pilot Dave Pravlik of Oakland, Pennsylvania. “We looked at the cans and thought, ‘this is what we need to do.’”

After taking a dive off the barge, it took scuba divers and crews on jet skis and boats several minutes to collect the remains of America, Oh Beautiful’s plane. The U.S. Coast Guard also was on hand to assist if needed.

It was safe to say that the car/plane of team Superfly White Guys also was totaled. Not much was left intact of their purple cardboard 1964 Chevrolet Impala convertible — complete with spinning hubcaps and hydraulics — or their costumes. As clean-up crews towed parts of the car/plane out of the water, wigs, hair picks and a diamond-topped cane floated around.

Successes

Among the more successful teams were those that used hang gliders.

A team of five adult men in diapers and baby bonnets placed third with their craft, which resembled a Stork. Their prize was $1,500 or skydiving lessons for the pilot.

In second place was team AeroBus. Their hang glider sat on a cardboard bus, which fell into the water once it was pushed over the edge. The glider made it close to the 70-foot mark. They won $3,000 or paragliding lessons.

First place went to Rover’s Flying Glory, the record-breaking team. They won $7,500 or a pilot’s training course. Duji said they’re taking the money because they promised listeners they’d use it for the radio station’s next construction project — the world’s best toilet.

E-mail: acodispo@kent.edu