Eye In The Sky

Acrobats in the air, dancing... Excitement gets thousands fired up, why? I think there is something popular in the City, what can it be;)


As we wanted a fun day down on the beach, we marked our calendar a few weeks ago, and went down to the beach last weekend. What could I wish more if those were on my favor: creativity - skies - excitement - imagination - craziness:)

On May 25, last Sunday noon Red Bull touched down on the City for the 1st Red Bull Flugtag. Known as Red Bull Flugtag, City hosted the outrageous human-powered flying competition.

If you are curious what's Flugtag...

Well.. Flugtag, which means 'Flying Day' in german, has been a Red Bull tradition for the last 17 years, which is the only competition where the creative, brave and often slightly crazy get to pilot homemade flying machines off a ramp six to nine meters high in front of a jury.

Teams are judged on 3-criteria: distance, creativity and showmanship.

A first in Istanbul's rich history, 1st Red Bull Flugtag 2008 Istanbul was held near the Caddebostan Beach on City's Asian side that's nearby my home:) The Istanbul ramp was 30 mt long, 10 mt wide and 6 mt high off the Marmara Sea. It was sunny and warm weather:)

Oh my goodness! A huge crowd. Officially announced as 85,000 people watched the event. One of them was your Editor by the way:)


Unrelated, but I like men wearing pink:) So I blocked my shot on about half of him, so cool:)


It was really more fun to watch all the creativity, the people at the beach were great, too!


A total of 32 teams from 23 cities completed at the 1st Redbull Flugtag in Turkey by 586 team players, according to the news.


Crafts were moving to the stage one by one on the Marmara Sea.


Those flying machines provided us with lots of laughs as they experience the effects of gravity! Audience enjoyed the show to the fullest! See below, n'Joy:)







The longest distance flew by team of Flying Turkeys with 26,9 meters, being the winner of the 1st Red Bull Flugtag, got 42.0 points.

The creativity of their flying machine, and their pre-flight performance, the Red Bull Flugtag is the most definitely the dream competition for crazy showmen with a desire to take to the skies in a very unique way. Let me say it was an extraordinary flying contest, and we enjoyed a lot!

At the end of the day, obviously I was very inspired, and constructed my marvelous flying machine:) Oopps.. it was online for this time;) So funny and creative, no:)


Anyone who's a fan of flying or history of Flugtag, here's your Editor's note:)

1480's - Leonardo da Vinci studies of Manned Flight
Made the first real studies of flight accumulating over 100 drawings that illustrated his theories of flight.

Notable craft: The Ornithopter

1903 - The Wright Brothers First Flight
After spending many years learning about the yearly discoveries in flight, the Wright Brothers regularly took to the air in gliders, much like Cayley. Their work with gliders focused on control for their powered experiments.

Notable achievement: The first heavier-than-air flight of 120 feet at Kitty Hawk.

1991- The First Flugtag
The first Red Bull Flugtag took place in Vienna, Austria in 1991. Since then, more than 35 Flugtags have been held around the world -from Ireland to San Francisco- attracting up to ~300,000 spectators. A big multinational competing.

The record for the farhest flight-to-date currently stands at 195 feet set in 2000 at Flugtag Austria.