Innovative aircraft come to the beach
The hard-working employees at Red Frog Events in Chicago aren’t asking for much. They just want their office kitchen back.
For over eight weeks, the event coordinators have been forced to find their way around a set of 20-foot-long wings — just to get a cup of coffee.
“Yep, the wings are in the kitchen and the actual body of the frog is in the basement of our building,” explains 21-year-old employee Jeff Hardesty. “None of us have had any experience building a giant red frog that can fly. It should be a real trick to figure out how to get this thing down the freight elevator of the building.” Confused? Hardesty is just one member of the 28 teams from all across the Midwest that will find their way to North Avenue Beach on Sept. 8 with one goal in mind — flying. In a manner of speaking.
For the first time since 2008, the event known worldwide as Red Bull Flugtag is coming back to Chicago, uniting thousands of spectators with more than 100 people specifically chosen to build a homemade, human-powered flying machine. Judged on a mix of creativity, showmanship and actual flying ability, the teams and their flying machines, which must be less than 30 feet wide and must weigh no more than 450 pounds, are pushed off a 30-foot deck in hopes of achieving flight.
And just what would be the reason any sane person would be interested in dropping off a 30-foot flight deck while strapped into an unproven flying apparatus?