Aerodynamically challenged is the kindest description of the 39 home-made "aircraft" on show at the Red Bull Flugtag in Dublin yesterday.
Fashioned as the machines were from bits of twine, bamboo, cotton, cling-film, trolleys and wheelchairs, their designers were never going to be headhunted by Aer Lingus or NASA.
"It's insanity," said FM104 DJ Rick O'Shea, voicing what even the competitors themselves were all too pleased to admit.
"It's a game of try not to kill yourself. It's mad." The most appealing thing about Flugtag (flying day in German) appears to be the fact that it is utterly pointless. The event, sponsored by the drink manufacturer Red Bull, has been held in Berlin for the past two years.
Organisers say 50,000 people turned up to George's Dock in the International Financial Services Centre for the event.
In theory the idea was to fly as far across the dock as possible. In practice the procedure was as follows: be lifted by crane on to a six-metre-high platform. Run bravely along platform. Nosedive into murky Liffey water. Wave and cheer a lot at crowd and rotating panel of judges that included Eddie Irvine, Brendan O'Carroll and Louis Walsh.
Some entrants were more serious than others.
Plane 2 C, one of the most expensive designs, had been put together by a group of aviation enthusiasts from Dublin. The plane never left the platform after a cross-wind caused it to veer off-course and crash, badly damaging the undercarriage.
Pilot Terry Coughlan may be dreading showing his face at the next meeting of the Society of Amateur Aircraft Constructors, but one team was quietly pleased about his misfortune.
Stephen Sinclair, a porter at Tallaght hospital and the pilot of The Flying Doctor, explained that Plane 2 C had represented their biggest barrier to winning the prize of £3,000 worth of flying lessons.
His own design cost around £1,300 and, unusually for Flugtag craft, it actually looked like an aeroplane. Unfortunately for him it didn't fly like one.
A group of former mechanical engineering students were justifiably ambitious about their machine, The Spirit of St Anthony, and in the end the team, piloted by Peter Bourke, walked away with the first prize.
One of the most popular craft was flown by Star Ski and Hutch, consisting of Bryan Joyce and Shane Connaughton from Cycle Ways Bicycle Shop in Dublin. Their four-wheeled machine wasn't up to much, but both were proficient at showing off their 1970s-style chest-hair.