Thousands of people on a beautiful warm day attended the event “Red Bull Flugtag in Boston” which was free and open to the public on Saturday 20 Aug, 2016 at DCR’s Hatch Memorial Shell on the Esplanade from 11am to 3:00pm.  Red Bull marked its 25th anniversary of Flugtag on Saturday and brought the event to Boston‘s Charles River’s waters for the first time.  â€œFlugtag” is a German term for “flying day. There were 30 teams of five people who built homemade aircrafts that launched over—and into—the Charles River.  One person in each team acted as a “pilot” and was responsible for accompanying the craft as it was launched off a 28-foot-high flight deck sitting atop of Charles water. The first ever Flugtag took place in Austria in 1992 and other U.S. cities that have hosted the event included New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles. 

The out of state teams especially arrive a day in advance to assemble their crafts. Every team gives a name to their airplane depending on the character they represent and some teams get professional help to build their efficient aircrafts. The Monkey Ballers team at MIT with aerodynamics and engineering help built a highly efficient craft. All the participants’ goal is to earn high scores from a panel of judges in the three categories: Creativity, Showmanship, and Distance.  Every participant seemed little nervous as they did not know how their vehicle was going to behave at that moment.  As one of the builders said that “Some will flop and some will fly fine. But it is fun.” Every team was very much excited to build, design, and get to fly its airplane as high as possible either to set a new record or break the previous records. Every team had its own thing in mind to display in front of the enthusiastic spectators than a victory. Some of the teams displayed to the spectators a specific theme such as school bus, importance of public education, a company building etc. The spectators who came from all over the Greater Boston area were immersed with much curiosity who is going to win in this fun filled Red Bull Flugtag.

“I is really a fun to watch homemade aircrafts with different themes. I’m also really excited and just absolutely thrilled to be part of it” said one of the spectators of the event.