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Their dream was to fly

Last Updated 29 September 2014, 14:18 IST

Off they flew! No, these were any professional aircraft but amateur ones in various shapes, colours and sizes built by enthusiastic youngsters at the first Red Bull Flugtag held in India.

The serene waters of Sankey Tank had probably held a crowd of this magnitude for the first as thousands thronged the venue to see the colourful models in the air, albeit for just a few seconds! 

31 teams from Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Belgaum and Chennai to name a few took part in the show that had them taking off a 22 feet high deck using handmade flying machines. The competition was to see who soared the furthest before crashing into the water.  

The teams came up with not only innovative shapes like that of an auto, paper plane, penguins or even the hilarious pink panties and bra, but even creative names for themselves like Masala Flightosa (whose model was in the shape of a masala dosa) and ‘Puliyogare Mix’.

Before taking off, the teams had to perform a jig that described their models. This was once again an entertaining affair as teams chose peppy tunes and shook a leg not necessarily in coordination! 

While ‘Flying Penguins’ whose model was inspired from the penguins of the animated hit ‘Madagascar’ danced to ‘I Like To Move It, Move It’, ‘Majestic Beasts’ whose model was based on the characters of ‘The Jungle Book’ danced to the Hindi title track of the much-loved TV show and even generated a loud cheer from the audience! 

The star-studded panel of judges included VJ-turned-DJ Nikhil Chinnappa, badminton player Ashwini Ponnappa, singer and actress Monica Dogra, VJ Rannvijay Singh, cricketer Varun Aaron and chess champion Tania Sachdev.

“I have been in Bangalore all my life and Sankey Tank looks really beautiful today,” said Nikhil, while Monica said, “I am excited to see Bangalore acting weird today!” Varun Aaron was clearly excited to be part of the show.

“I had seen a number of clippings on Youtube regarding this and it’s been great fun to be a part of it. In India, Bangalore is the best place to be in,” he noted. 

The teams spent months designing, building and testing their machines for what they hoped would be a few seconds of glory! The competition was won by ‘Visar-jet’ from Mumbai that managed to fly a distance of almost 60 feet.

“The fact that our craft flew and the judges liked our concept is an unbelievable feeling. There was a lot of hard work that went into winning this trophy and we are glad that it has all paid off. Building this craft has also brought us all together after a long time.”

Talpade from Bangalore and ‘Majestic Beast’ from Nagpur were placed second and third respectively. ‘Puliyogare Mix’ won the audience choice award.      

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(Published 29 September 2014, 14:17 IST)

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