Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Off we go, into the wild green yonder. That could have been the theme song for an unusual flying contest Saturday in Long Beach.
Thirty-five teams participated, pushing fanciful homemade gliders off a 30-foot-high ramp over Rainbow Harbor.
If that sounds odd, consider that a crowd at 105,000 showed up to watch.
All 35 gliders ended up in the harbor's murky olive-colored water. So did each team's four-member, costumed crew; they jumped off the ramp.
A Newport Beach-based team, Peepin' It Real, won the contest, called the Red Bull Flugtag, by making it 98 feet from the end of the takeoff ramp. The candy-chick-shaped craft was piloted by Corinne Schnieders and featured an all-woman crew.
The energy-drink company has conducted more than 80 of the contests over the past 19 years, although Saturday's was the first for Long Beach. Flugtag means "flight day" in German.
Read more: "Homemade Gliders Soar — or Not — at 'Flugtag' in Long Beach."
-- Bob Pool
Photo: The team U Fly Like a Girl plunges 30 feet at Rainbow Harbor, a
not-untypical showing at the Red Bull Flugtag on Aug. 21, 2010. All the gliders landed
in the drink, but one went farthest: Peepin' it Real of Newport Beach. Credit: Barbara Davidson / Los Angeles Times
