Make no mistake, Red Bull events often attract huge crowds where ever they go in the world. Red Bull brought its Flugtag (which means “flying day” in German) event to St. Paul, Minnesota on July 24 which attracted 90,000 people on both sides of the Mississippi River at Harriet Island. Jersey’s Bar & Grill owner Bill Ashton learned Flugtag was coming to St. Paul several months ago and was one of 500 groups to enter, but one of just 35 to be selected to compete. Once selected, Bill consulted with bar regular Bob Wiplinger of Wipaire to help him design and build a glider to enter the competition. Design and build they did. “Bob’s team spent about 800 hours designing and building the B-25 inspired glider,” noted Ashton.

The glider, named Major Trouble and the Dirty Dixies, was built by Wipaire employees Bob ‘Wip’ Wiplinger, Ryan Nordell, Doug Kiser and Elliot Bishop. As for flying the glider, the build team looked to Lake & Air Training employee Rachel Norman (left) to sit in the cockpit atop a curious launching apparatus. Rachel managed 5 seconds of flight and set a world record of 207 feet (besting the previous best of 195 feet). Next best that day was about 40′.

“Red Bull has a good set-up. Jetski’s pick up the pilot and also push the glider over to a barge where most are junked,” said Ashton. “Ours was in good shape. We’re getting it back and we’ll hang it in the bar.” Bravo to all involved. Nice to see some people having some fun in aviation.