Sketch • Glendon
Lee, a senior pre-graphic design major,
provided the artistic interpretation
for a bikini-shaped flying machine for
Slippery When Wet, a team entering the
Flugtag competition sponsored by Red
Bull. Photo submitted
by Red Bull.
Students
attempt to fly giant bikini in Ariz.
By
Ivana Karapandzic
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer
Look out! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Wait…it’s a flying
black and yellow bikini!
Five students from Cal State Long Beach will head to Tempe, Ariz., Saturday
to fly their aircraft in the Red Bull Flugtag competition.
“
Flugtag” means flying day in German, and this weekend Long Beach’s
Slippery When Wet Team, consisting of Bryan Daley, Ryan Hall, Jason Mack, Matt
Roumiguiere and Deanna Worden, will attempt to go the distance with their aircraft,
which has been built in the shape of a bikini.
The teams had to build an innovative human-powered flying craft that one person
will have to pilot off a flight deck and fly as
far as possible before eventually landing in the Tempe Town Lake.
“
Hopefully it will fall slowly, but it’s either going to fly 2 feet or
35 feet,” Daley said.
The team has not tested out its bikini aircraft because this bikini will only
be a one-hit wonder.
“
Once it hits the water, it’s over, and we’ll never see her again,” said
Roumiguiere, the pilot of the bikini aircraft.
The team plans to figure out the best spot for Roumiguiere to either sit in
the craft or hold on as if hang gliding. It will be just as important to practice
how they will push the aircraft across the flight deck and off the edge.
Only 33 applications were chosen from more than 200 “to soar or swan
dive into the Tempe Town Lake,” according to the Red Bull Flugtag Arizona
2006 Web site.
The teams will compete for the grand prize — a pilot’s training
course or $7,500. Second prize is skydiving lessons or $3,000. Third prize
is paragliding lessons or $1,500. There is also a prize awarded for Most Creative
and People’s Choice.
The teams will be judged on distance, creativity, and showmanship.
Slippery When Wet’s primary motivation is having a good time.
“
There’s an open-bar hotel,” said Mack, the Slippery When Wet team
captain. “I think we’re already winners.”
The team has an amusing skit planned out for its opening sequence, starting
off with the theme song from “Baywatch.”
“
We’re going to be wearing really short red shorts, tank tops, blonde
wigs, and we’ll have huge balloon boobs. We’re going to be sexy,” Roumiguiere
said, “in a really disturbing way.”
Mack thought up the idea of a flying bikini while sitting in class bored one
day.
“
The idea evolved from a bra and panties into a bathing suit to represent the
school,” Mack”said.
According to Mack, it took a lot of planning to get an idea of how to put together
the craft, and about 100 to 150 hours went into the actual building of it.
Glendon Lee helped the team get started by sketching Mack’s idea out.
The craft is primarily made up of “plumbing pipes, chicken wire, wood,
cloth, glue, duct tape, and heart,” Roumiguiere said.
There is a pep-rally for Slippery When Wet from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday,
outside the University Bookstore.
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