Flying high … or not

A local crew has chosen the little known flying squirrel to champion its attempt to attain glory at a rather inglorious event that celebrates odd-ball flying art pieces that crash into the water.

Bryce Rich, owner of Boyd Hill Snowskates, and TJ Sneva, a custom alpine ski designer from Spokane, have teamed up to lead the only crew from Idaho or Eastern Washington to compete in the Red Bull Flugtag 2015 event on Aug. 1 in Portland.

Some 500 entries were whittled down to 45 applicants who were selected to build some sort of craft that is supposed to fly after it free-falls from a platform 28-feet high to the water in front of thousands of onlookers.

“It’s nuts. It looks like an Indy car, but it’s light,” Rich said of their entry. “I think it will actually fly.”

Rich, 43, also works for Hayden Beverage Company in Idaho, which is the official sponsor of the “Hayden Beverage Flying Squirrels” team.

Rich contracted Sneva, son of former Indy car driver Jerry Sneva and nephew of 1983 Indianapolis 500 champion Tom Sneva, to build its concept for a flying contraption.

Asked if his creation will fly, Sneva said he doesn’t know. The thing is 20 feet wide, 18 feet long and only weighs 80 pounds without the pilot in a squirrel costume.

“It kind of looks like an Indy car. That’s probably what you would expect from me,” said Sneva, who builds custom alpine skis for his business Sneva Manufacturing.

With the inspiration of Miles Daisher, a BASE jumper and wing-suit enthusiast from Twin Falls, Idaho, the team came up with the concept of someone dressed up as a flying squirrel while riding an aircraft made to look like a person flying in a wing suit, Rich said.

“The entire company is behind us,” Rich said. “We have to transport the thing in a Penske truck from here to Portland. We are snapping the wings on when we get there.”

While most of the participants fly directly downward, all are judged equally on three criteria: distance in flight, the performance prior to the plunge and creativity.

“Let’s say we get third place in distance and high marks on everything else. We still have good chance of winning,” Rich said. “But if our skit is dumb and we fly the farthest, we are still not going to win.”

While he was unsure of the overall winning prize, which isn’t cash, Rich said Red Bull officials put a lot of effort into making sure that participants take Flugtag, which means “flying day” in German, somewhat seriously.

“To be involved, you really have to be dedicated,” Rich said. “The whole time (Red Bull officials) are asking for team videos and social media feeds. Red Bull wants it to look as good as possible.”

In his entry form, Rich sketched a crude drawing of a squirrel on the back of a man in a wing suit.

“We’re gonna bring some Idaho pain,” Rich wrote. “We’re gonna fly this thing into the side of somebody’s barge.”

Sneva, 39, said he had to know the width of the moving truck before he could start. And, he admitted that the final product doesn’t exactly look like a dude in a wing suit.

“Once it gets decorated, it probably will … once they spruce it up more with graphics,” he said.

He let Rich and the rest of the team worry about costumes and skits while he worked on the flying thing for the past month.

“I just want to see how far it will go,” Sneva said. “I don’t really care about their costumes. But, I wish them the best.”