A group of grown men from Barrie is ready to sink and swim to test their flying capabilities.

The Frisbee in the Sky with Diamonds team has put together its creation for the upcoming Red Bull Flugtag.

“Flugtag has been going since 1991 and I grew up following it when I could,” said Kevin Morris, owner of Tropical North.

The Flugtag, pronounced Floogtag, is an event where teams build a non-motorized craft, a la the Wright brothers. It has to be big enough for a person to ride on, and is launched off a ramp into the water. It can’t weigh more than 450 pounds, including pilot, or be wider than 30 feet. The team whose creation soars the furthest distance before crashing wins the competition.

When Morris heard the event was coming to Ottawa, he called up a few friends and told them they were going.

“There wasn’t any convincing; we had a team meeting where we talked about what we were doing,” he said.

The last time the event was in Canada was two years ago in Vancouver.

“Ottawa is the closest it’s ever been. I have a friend who works for Red Bull and I asked him how we could get in.”

That was three days before the May 30 entry deadline. Morris had to quickly come up with an original idea. From watching the televised event, he knew that people had built a variety of flying creations, from planes and cars to bugs and gliders. But no one has ever entered a Frisbee before.

“I came up with the craziest thing I could. I figured that if someone was flat on a Frisbee and it was spinning as it flew, that would be something never seen before.”

The Frisbee in the Sky with Diamonds idea was born, and the group plans to dress up accordingly, with the Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds playing in the background.

“We’re all going to be dressed as hippies in tie dye,” said Morris.

“The concept is we’re playing disc and we’re tripping out, and I’m chasing the Frisbee off as a dog,” said Dan Walley. He admits he’s probably the only team member who didn’t know what the flugtag was. Now that he does, he’s ready to have fun.

But first is completing the moving parts. The team took apart an old trampoline and has been welding a few pieces to go with it since then. The main frame of the 14-foot trampoline is the Frisbee. It all comes apart, making it easy to transport to Ottawa.

While the pieces all work individually, Morris said he’s not sure what’ll happen at the Aug. 3 flugtag.

“We can’t test it. I don’t know if it’ll fly,” said Morris.

The Frisbee pilot, Kyle Taylor, will be laying face-up while he spins off the ramp.

“He could ‘feather-it down’. We don’t know.”

The team’s concept to launch the spinning Frisbee was to have a rolling table underneath it. During their ‘stage’ performance, one of the team members will pull a cord, which will get the Frisbee spinning. The rest of the team, consisting of Walley, Morris, Mike Kubica and Kevin Scriver, will push the table until the whole thing is launched off a large ramp. Each member will also jump into the water.

While the team is entering it as a fun competition, others are very serious about the sport. Each team is judged on creativity, distance and pre-launch showmanship. The North American record for distance is 87 feet.

The first prize is a pilot’s training course or $7,500 cash, second is skydiving lessons or $3,000, and third is paragliding lessons or $1,500.

Even if the Frisbee is a flop, the team is already working on its next idea.

The 2008 Red Bull Flugtag Ottawa-Gatineau starts at 1 p.m. and will be televised later this year. For more information, go to the link provided.