CINCINNATI — What do balloons, UFOs, flying skateboards and FC Cincinnati's Gary the Lion have in common? They're all going to try to fly over the Ohio River this weekend.
The Red Bull Flugtag will have roughly 40 teams aiming to take the air over the waters of the Ohio River on Saturday in the hopes their homemade flying devices soar, not sink.
Teams of up to five people, bearing names like Cincy Til I Fly, Weenie Hut Jr., and Arabian Flights, will put their human-powered flying machines to the test at Sawyer Point Park & Yeatman's Cove.
The machines, made by teams over the last several months, will be piloted by a single person off an elevated flight deck. They'll be judged on three criteria: flight distance, creativity and showmanship. All crafts must be human-powered only, with no engines or external energy sources allowed and pre-fabricated crafts are not allowed.
Former Cincinnati Bengal Chad Johnson, Olympic Skier and Indiana native Nick Goepper, Cincy drag queen and entertainer Jessica Dimon, TikTok-er Cale Saurage and media personality Chloe Pavlech will serve as the judges.
Each team has a profile on the event's website, fully equipped with design sketches of each team's planned aircraft. They range in style, size and ridiculousness — from Condado's "Flying Juicy Lucy" taco design to Cincy 'Til I Fly's "Gary in the Sky with Diamonds" to a design that features a caveman riding a one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater.
"Don't laugh, it works," reads the hand-drawn design submitted by the team, named The Neanderthals.
Team Top Gums, an all-woman team from Middletown, has created the Betty White Bomber, a plane-shaped creation featuring homages to Betty White herself.
"Listen, we love the movie Top Gun and we're all Golden Girl fans — who isn't a Golden Girls fan — so it's Top Gums, the Betty White Bomber," said one team member.
Gates for the unique event will open at noon on Saturday and opening ceremonies will kick off at 1 p.m. The final flights will take off around 3:45 p.m., immediately followed by an awards ceremony to crown the winners, though the event's website says times could be subject to change.
Spectators of the festivities will also be able to enjoy food and beverage vendors throughout the event site, which is free to watch with open seating available in the park.
Those hoping to snag a seat for the spectacle might want to arrive earlier rather than later; event planners said they anticipate 30,000 attendees, though Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval said he's hoping for more like 50,000 when he held a press conference to announce the event in March.
Attendees hoping to watch from the river on a boat will have to be in the water before noon; the US Coast Guard will be closing access to the Ohio River from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday in the area where the flugtag will be held.
For those who want to witness the spectacle but have no desire to be directly in the heart of the mayhem, a watch party is being held at Newport on the Levee. The competition will stream on the LED screens inside the Gallery and outside in the plaza.
Named after the German word for "flight day," Flugtag challenges people to design, build and test a human-powered flying machine. Most, of course, fail. The first Red Bull Flugtag took place in Vienna in 1992. Now, Red Bull hosts the event in cities across the world, its most recent Flugtag taking place in New Zealand. The Flugtag in Cincinnati will be the only event in the U.S. this year and the first time the event will be held in Ohio for more than two decades.
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