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Flugtag, Human Powered Flying Machine Competition
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..."
Does spending a week winding up a huge rubber band count?
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Red Bull is non-alcoholic, however it does contain caffeine, guarana (very similar to caffeine), and ephedra (very similar to, well, amphetamines). Ephedra is basically amphetamine (in terms of it's chemistry and effects) with less buzz and more side-effects. Combined with caffeine and the notion that a store bought drink is healthy, many people have been sent to the hospital for heart attacks, uncontrolable twitching, and hallucinations. And cases of ephedra abuse are on the rise (however it's normally associated with pill-form ephedra). So, it's more like a "let's get tweeked out and jump into the world's filthiest bay while the people who competed in the chugging contest are picking at their skin".
Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.
"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!
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.
Because pulling 10 tons out of the 'Frisco bay is a pain in the ass...
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.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
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.
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.
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
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
Wings? Who needs wings?
500 bucks worth of canned beans oughtta do it.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
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
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.
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