Red Bull gives you wings

Well, it turns out Red Bull might give you wings, but that doesn't mean it can make you fly. I went to the Red Bull Flugtag in St. Paul. This silly event is, in sum, a bunch of crazy half-cocked people who come up with looney devices, with wings, then dress up, do a little dance, and push them off a 30-foot cliff into the Mississippi River.

My friend Sarah was Snoopy atop the dog house. Although often they do little more than hang on for dear life as the craft barrels toward the water, they call this brave soul the "pilot." She and her crew are aerospace engineers. Sadly, that seemed to help them little since the crosswind nearly blew their plane off the top of the house seconds before they were supposed to push it down the track towards the water. The announcer said in 14 years he had never seen a pilot look so terrified.

She survived the 3o-foot drop into the river, but managed to fly only about 30 feet away from the platform. Whew! It was hot, it was packed (over 90,000 people crammed in to watch these lunatics!) and it was fun. I posted a video that shows some of the 37 crafts, including Snoopy, going off the platform. One craft even won the world record. It's hard to see it in the video, but it's basically the only one that doesn't crash in the first 2 seconds. It flew 207 feet out into the river!

I would definately go again.