Moomba Birdman Rally 2014

Yarra River, Sunday 9th March 2014

I had wanted to come to this for quite a few years but I always seemed to have stuff on. Due to the Carnival of Suburbia having a rest this year I had the opportunity to make it and even ended up waking up early.

Scott did send me a message telling me to arrive by 11am to beat the crowds and I was lucky enough to get a VIP pass so I could watch from the guests area and sit down. It was quite pleasant. Quite a few people bought a picnic lunch along and I had an apple and some cheap stuff I picked up at 7/11 beforehand. Was only an hour or so that I had to wait in that area.

For some reason I thought there weren't going to be many contestants, but that was just in the same category as Scott. There were two categories of the "Penguin" class, the ones doing it for fun and the more serious "Hawk" class who were there to fly the distance. The competition had a handicap system based on the amount of money raised for each competitor's charity where they had bonus metres added for the amount of money raised.

As expected Scott did not go that far and could have a second job as a plum bob or set square as his flight was almost straight down. He did win his category, which was good to see and got a good audience reaction.

There were a few people who basically just ran off the end of the platform, which would be hard to do as it is a lot higher than it looks. The main thing is that everyone raised money for a good cause and had fun.

I will try to make it next year depending on my schedule.

Link:
http://www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/whatson/festivals/moombafestival/2014/pages/birdmanrally.aspx