Red Bull Flugtag was on Saturday, and I’m proud to say that the Phoenix flew 62 feet!  45 of those feet were straight down, but who’s counting?  Have a look at the video (the photographer got our name wrong, but that’s ok)…and pay attention to the mind-blowing dancing.  I’m the one in yellow:

The actual flight wasn’t a huge success, but the event was.  People were cheering their hearts out for us and for Microsoft, and I know I speak for everyone on the team when I say that it was really cool to be part of something so totally off-the-wall crazy.  I think my favorite part of the flight was the reaction from the crowd when we played our launch music, which we laced with system sounds from Windows 7 and Windows XP.  When the Windows XP startup music played, the crowd immediately got into the groove.  Everyone knows that iconic noise and it instantly made the Flugtag/Microsoft connection for the 105,000 people who were watching.

The Windows Project Phoenix Team celebrating the completed craft & tower

We’re all safe and sound and in one piece (I smashed into the wing on the way into the water and banged up my mouth, but nothing major), and happy to be back in Redmond with our friends, families and co-workers.

Below are a few more of my favorite photos from launch day and we’ll be posting many more stills and video clips on our Facebook page over the next few days.  Thanks again to everyone who supported us – we really couldn’t have done it without you.  And be sure to keep an eye on our Facebook page for information on our next crazy adventure.  I’m pretty sure that Project Phoenix will rise again!

Three words: Mad. Dance. Skills.

Seconds before the “flight”.  We were running at full-tilt to get the Phoenix up to launch speed.

Our engineers, Mike, Lucas and Brian, worked their hearts out (and butts off) on this project.

The team with one of our fans.  Support for Project Phoenix was off the charts.

Jay, Ali and Ryan working the crowd.