Photos by Nicholas Noell

More than 100,000 curious spectators flocked to Rainbow Harbor Saturday to watch 28 teams drive their wacky flying contraptions into the water in the second Red Bull Flugtag to take over Long Beach’s shore. 

In the last few months, teams from Los Angeles and beyond have been designing, building and testing out homemade flying contraptions in the hopes that they will go the distance when launched off the 30-foot Pine Avenue Pier. Requirements specified that the machines be human-powered, less than 28 feet across and weigh less than 400 pounds including the driver.

Teams were scored on creativity and distance by official judges such as Workaholics cast members, a world-record cycle jumper and television personality Carson Daly. 

For the first time since Flugtag (or “flying day”) landed in 2010, the event was held concurrently in five cities around the country. Since Long Beach was the only West Coast location, however, many of the teams were from outside of Southern California.

Taking first place in the competition was The Chicken Whisperers, a team of aerospace engineers from the Palo Alto area who donned chicken costumes as their flying machine soared 258 feet, making it the new world record over a 228-foot flight that took place last year.

Second place went to a Long Beach team, the Legendary Flying Machine, partly made up of owners of local bars Legends and the Auld Dubliner. Other Long Beach teams, such as Viajes de los Muertos–made up of members of Cal State Long Beach’s Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers–and Ship Yeah, whose team members all work on the Queen Mary, didn’t place. 

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