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Daredevils try to keep the stork flying

Cameron Alder, Brett Hileman and Blaine Coury work on their Redbull Flugtag craft "Unexpected Delivery" for the Flugtag competiton in Long Beach, Ca. this past Saturday. (Photo by Aaron Lavinsky)
Cameron Alder, Brett Hileman and Blaine Coury work on their Redbull Flugtag craft "Unexpected Delivery" for the Flugtag competiton in Long Beach, Ca. this past Saturday. (Photo by Aaron Lavinsky)

Flying a giant stork off of a 30-foot pier might seem like a scene from a slapstick comedy, but for a team of ASU students, it’s a two-month coordinated project that can only be described as a leap of faith.

Three ASU students and two friends flew their homemade stork about 40 feet in Saturday’s Red Bull Flugtag event in Long Beach, Calif. before it fell into the ocean.

Communications junior Cameron Adler, marketing senior Blaine Coury, mechanical engineering junior Ethan Province an ASU alumnus Brett Hileman, along with 27-year-old Andrews Jeffers, made up team Unexpected Delivery.

Flugtag, which means “flying day” in German, began in 1991 in Austria. Since then, there have been more than 50 contests around the world.

“It’s pretty much normal, ordinary people building these crazy, wild crafts trying to fly,” said Hileman, pilot for the group.

The theme of their craft was called “Unexpected Delivery,” and showcased a 22-foot by 15-foot giant stork, complete with pool noodles for legs and a bowtie.

Team members wore diapers as costumes to represent a stork delivering a baby.

“There is no better thing than storks to explain where babies come from,” Coury said.

The bulk of the bird was constructed using simple materials like wood, PVC pipe and cloth, Hileman said.

A record 105,000 people were in attendance on Saturday, making it the largest Flugtag event ever in the United States.

The event was set up like a giant cul-de-sac, allowing spectators to look at all the designs and talk with team members as the float moved toward the dock, Adler said.

“The night before the event we walked around Long Beach in our diapers, dancing with people in the street,” he said.

These five adrenaline junkies met through their involvement in XDevils, an extreme sports club at ASU. The idea to enter the Flugtag contest developed after the five attended a Red Bull Soapbox event.

“After that, we knew we wanted to do some sort of Red Bull event,” Hileman said.

The team had watched Flugtag on the Internet and witnessed it live in 2006 when the contest was held at the Tempe Town Lake, Adler said.

“We are all adrenaline people, so we thought it was the perfect thing,” he said.

More than 500 teams applied for the Long Beach contest. Of those, only 34 were selected.

“Through our idea of the stork and our personality, they realized we were perfect for the project,” Adler said.

Two Arizona teams were selected to compete in the contest, and Unexpected Delivery was the only team from ASU.

The contest is judged in three different categories: showmanship, design and distance. Those three scores combined determine the winner. There is also a people’s choice award, which allows fans to text in their vote for best craft, Adler said.

The maximum wingspan for each craft is 30 feet, and it must weigh less than 450 pounds with the pilot inside.

During the contest, teams have only a minute to perform a skit based off their themed craft, and then push off into the air, Adler said.

The pilot rides atop their craft as the other teammates push the craft over the edge of the dock and into the ocean.

Part of their preparation process for the skit included training sessions in a gymnastics studio, Coury said.

“A former ASU gymnast taught us to do backflips,” he said.

Taking first prize at the event was team Peepin’ it Real, which flew a distance of 98 feet. The prize-winning team will head to Arizona for a flight with pilot Kirby Chambliss, the Red Bull Air Race World Champion, at his Flying Crown Ranch, according to Red Bull’s event website.

Although the stork-themed craft only flew 40 feet before impact, each team member fully enjoyed the experience.

“We had the time of our lives,” Adler said, “We definitely want to do something like this again.”

No storks were harmed in the making of this craft, Coury said.

Reach the reporter at amoswalt@asu.edu


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