FIU Panthers Take Flight at Red Bull Flugtag

Cristina E. Garcia

Ladies and gentlemen, the Panthers have landed.

Saturday, Sept. 21, The Flying Panthers took off a 30-foot ramp and glided 12 feet into the glimmering waters of Bayfront Park at the annual Red Bull Flugtag event.

According to Daniel Oliva, a junior mechanical engineering major, the aerial journey began in July, when Kevin Goldvarg, a senior mechanical engineering major, posted a Facebook status seeking like-minded individuals that would be interested in entering the Flugtag competition with him–contrary to the “evil engineering exam” story on the National Red Bull Flugtag website.

Four mechanical engineering majors responded: Patrick Alvarez, a graduate student; Juan Barrera, a senior; Andres Cardenas, a junior; and Oliva.

Initially, this seemed enough since the competition required a team consisting of “one fearless pilot and four people to aid in takeoff,” as stated on the site page. A month into their adventure, they realized they were missing something.

Oliva admitted they didn’t know what to do about the wings, so they asked George Dulikravich, professor in the Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, for help. The professor offered a solution in the form of one of his students, Sohail Reddy, a senior mechanical engineering major.

Over email, Reddy said he was “in charge of the design phase and the construction phase.”

When asked why the craft didn’t resemble the sketch on the site team page, Oliva said, “that was a rough sketch of something to turn into the Red Bull Company.”

Once they started working on it, they had to take that idea and create something that better fit their time and budget constraints.

The main concern for the team was money for materials.

Eventually, the team was able to raise one thousand dollars from sponsors Top Cars, Aero Kool Corporation, Waffleworks and Tag Heuer.

Finally, they were able to go to Home Depot and buy the materials to start building. The team didn’t finish until the day right before it was due, the Thursday before the competition.

“Overall, it was pretty good. I was quite surprised that we had great chemistry,” said Oliva. “Everyone input their own ideas, we all talked it out and talked it out democratically.”

In order to decide the roles the members would play during the actual take-off, they wrote their names on paper and randomly picked who would not be pushing the day of the competition. The odd man out was Barrera, but that didn’t stop him from running behind the craft on stage, waving his arms in support of his team members pushing the plane and jumping with them over the ledge into the watery grave below.

As much as they planned, the vessel veered to the left early in its flight and was thrown off course into the water, cutting its flight short.

According to Oliva, the problem stemmed from their fear in the craft getting caught on the base. In an effort to sidestep that problem, they didn’t strap it down to the base hard enough, instead they depended on Goldvarg’s body weight to keep it pinned down.

When they were pushing it down the ramp, a draft came, tipped the wings sideways and the tail was brought down. Once the tail went down, it hit Alvarez and that disrupted the flow of the whole thing, said Oliva.

When asked what they would do differently, Oliva said they could “add a piece of wood to the tail in the bottom and also create a better way to mount the flugtag on the base.”

You can visit the Red Bull Flugtag page for clips of The Flying Panther’s flight.

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