Sky-riders create ripples in lake

BANGALORE: All roads led to Sankey Tank on Sunday , when human-powered flying machines took over the sky. Fliers locked wings as they sought to prove they can glide farther than others in the first edition of Red Bull Flugtag in the country.
The competition saw participants attempt to fly localmade, light-weight flying machines. With 31 teams participating, the waterbody located in Sadashivnagar was surrounded by a sea of spectators.The walkers' path as well as the road along the tank bund was teeming with viewers. Giant screens had been erected all around the lake and huge crowds milled around them.
With the event as much about flying abilities as it was about showmanship, the atmosphere was carnivalesque. Participants shook their legs to music adding to the atmosphere every time a craft launched off a 22 foot-high flight deck. Judged on the creativity of their craft, the distance they fly and their performance (a little jig before the actual gliding), the Visar-jet, a team from Mumbai, emerged victorious. “We spent four days in Mumbai designing this aircraft. It was actually assembled in one of our team member’s garden with a lot of trial and error,” explained Sameer Ramani (25), pilot of Visar-Jet.
Re-assembling the aircraft once they landed in Bangalore was a challenge they were happy they could live up to. “It was a great project which gave enough exercise for the mind,” said Akshay Jain, 24. ger to witness the euphoria, traffic came to a standstill in the area since morning.
The Sankey Tank Road was closed for motorists between 11am and 4.15pm. It was converted into a pedestrian-only zone. On the other stretch, motorists commuting from Malleswaram were allowed to use one half of the road. However, as traffic was heavy, vehicles were moving at a snail’s pace.
Featuring Flugtag
Red Bull Flugtag is a competitive event in which participants attempt to fly local-made, light-weight, human-powered flying machines. The machines are usually launched off a pier about 30 feet high into a waterbody. At Sankey Tank, the flight deck was placed 22 feet above the lake.
The first Red Bull Flugtag was held in 1991 in Vienna, Austria. It met with a thumping success there and has been held each year since then. By now, it has been organized in over 35 cities all over the world.