It All Started With Plastic.
So just how did Team Fliegen come to be? When did Captain Courage first step into the limelight? Well, it all started something like this...
2001: Holding Pattern
Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances involving a downwind landing and an invisible fence post, Captain courage was unable to attend the 2001 event.
2002: Dreams Take Flight
Our intrepid gang first takes wing in the fall of 2002. Answering the call to flight, Team Fliegen constructed an entirely plastic aircraft. Now you don't just jump into anything like this. Oh no, it takes planning and preparation, First, plans had to be drawn up detailing the exact construction of our craft, the FP2-A1 Fliegen Plastic.
Nothing was left to change. Captain Courage even selected his current apartment based solely on the ability to fit two 14' wings and a fully assembled fuselage (with tail boom) in his living room. Of course it was impossible to move from one room to another without climbing under or through sections of the wing, but sacrifices must be made.
After months of back breaking effort, we were ready to reveal Fliegen Plastic to the world. Our only weakness was that our tail boom that had a slight design defect. Every now and then it would fall off. We decided to overcome this by intentionally detaching it during our preflight presentation (read: skit). This worked to much comic effect but adversely affected our flight characteristics.
Our theme music was pumping, and we flew to an official 27'. I tried to argue that it was at least 30' from the dock to the water, but it seems they were counting only lateral distance. Oh well, it was still a blast and the crowd loved us. Next year, we vowed, we were passing 50'.
2003: Snatching Defeat From The Jaws of Victory
While we were happy with our distance in the 2002 event, we knew we had more in us. More distance, more aircraft, more style. This was the birth of Captain Courage:
Captain courage was initially planned to be a large bungee cannon. Thankfully, the Red Bull people vetoed our use of bungee as courageously suicidal. Aside from that, the plan was solid and now we just needed to see if it world work:
Oh yes, there were calculations. We planned for 16 meters (a little over 50'). Next came many weeks of building in the armpit of summer. We had newspaper reporters and other teams show up to watch us put the cannon together. Rock stars, we were rock stars! Kinda.
Game day rolled around and we had, hands down, the most phallic craft.
We hauled our craft up to the dock and the music started up:
We loaded the cannon and got ready to fire. Then something went tragically wrong. Never having fired the cannon in costume before, we didn't realize how little friction there is between the foam padding on the sled and a polyester jumpsuit (none). When the firing team jumped the sled shot out from under the pilot allowing him to fall rather awkwardly on the centre rail.
Captain Courage shimmied up the cannon after a somewhat painful fall onto the guidance rail and found that the sled retention cable had broken and the sled was floating pointy side up in the water. With nothing else do do, Captain Courage jumped from the dock for honour's sake alone.
As Captain Courage described a parabolic arc towards the bay, one thought alone burned in his head: "Next year..."
2006: Redemption
The 2003 event taught two important messages. The first is that you should never build a craft with centre rail positioned just below the pilot's, er, waist if there is any way for him of accidentally fall on it. The second is far, far deeper.
The Flugtag isn't about having the most phallic aircraft. It's not about money, rock and roll or even cute girls on jet skis. Okay, the cute girls on jet skis are part of it, but the most important part is flight. Yes, it sounds simple,but it's easy to loose track of these things in the drive to fling the pilot further and further.
This year, we're coming back. We're gonna dance, we're gonna soar. This year is it,