It could be said the fourth generation of the Humphrey family has flown the highest.
Or, rather, the farthest.
That’s because Plant City natives Kevin and Keith Humphrey, both 43, are three-time Red Bull Flugtag competition winners. The twins assembled a crew — including Plant City native David West and friends Kevin Riley and Chris Elmore — in 2008, for the energy drink company’s first American event, in Tampa. They crushed the competition and haven’t looked back since.
Three years later, the crew won the event when it returned to Tampa. And last weekend, they brought home an unprecedented third championship Sept. 21, when Red Bull Flugtag soared into Miami, to celebrate National Flugtag Day, which featured simultaneous competitions in Miami, Long Beach, Dallas, Chicago and Washington, D.C..
Some of the Miami event’s judges were rather notable: Miami native and ESPN personality Dan LeBatard, wakeboarding star Parks Bonifay and prominent disc jockey, DJ Irie.
Re-dubbed the “Flugtag Flying Dead” to match their theme, the Humphreys and their crew flew 120 feet — breaking the 109-foot mark they set in 2008. Their flight more than doubled their closest competitors, who came in at 57 feet. About 94,000 people witnessed the flight.
“We actually had the second-farthest flight in the nation,” Kevin Humphrey said. “There was a team out in California that flew 258 feet. There were some crosswinds down in Miami. Nothing we could do about that.”
FAMILY MATTERS
Kevin Humphrey, who owns Horace Mann insurance agencies in Valrico and Bartow, is also a lieutenant colonel in the Florida National Guard Reserve. Once per month, he serves as a space control launch officer at the Kennedy Space Center, where nothing gets sent into orbit without his supervision. Notably, he was on the flight line in 1998, when John Glenn returned from his historic flight aboard Space Shuttle Discovery.
The Humphreys were born and raised in Plant City, both graduating in 1988, from Plant City High School. West, whom Kevin described as their “best friend,” also graduated with the twins.
“Keith and I are identical and almost exactly alike,” Kevin Humphrey says. “People mistake me for him all the time, and vice versa. Except for one thing: We’re twins, but I’m married with five kids. He’s recently married, but he wants none.”
With two sisters and two more brothers, they’re not only children. And three of their siblings — sisters Elisa and Cheryl (Trapnell), and brother Richard — are all educators in Plant City.
Although the family hasn’t always been able to make it out to the Flugtag events, Kevin Humphrey said they have been great about watching the competitions live. Their father, Lloyd, hosted a watch party at his Plant City home for this year’s event.
A LIGHT BULB TURNS ON
If it sounds like the Humphreys signed up for that first event in 2008 out of impulse, that’s because they did.
“Keith found out about the Flugtag event in 2008, and we just signed up for it,” Kevin Humphrey said. “Out of 450 applicants, we were chosen, and then we won.
“We all have day jobs; we’re normal guys,” he said. “We did this for fun.”
Riley, a Tampa-based animator, creates the ideas that eventually become the themes. For the technical stuff, there’s the “secret weapon.”
The ace up their sleeve is a 65-year-old hang-gliding expert named Bob Bailey, sometimes called “Mr. X,” who lives and operates in Groveland, just north of Auburndale. The crew met Bailey in 2008, and a lasting partnership was born.
“We were trying to find glider parts, and the guys from Fantasy of Flight referred us to him,” Keith Humphrey said. “He was all excited to be a part of it — one of his teammates had competed in a Flugtag event with a hang glider, so he was just running off of the platform, and the guy just tripped and fell at the last second. So this was kind of like redemption for (Bailey), to be a part of our team.”
Although Bailey doesn’t perform with the crew in their competitions, the brothers say his contributions to the team are invaluable.
“We take Kevin Riley’s creativity and Bobby’s engineering, and that’s how we put everything together,” Keith Humphrey said.
IT’S NOT JUST FALLING …
The best way to describe Flugtag to the uninitiated is simple: “falling with style.” Teams of five build a contraption expected to “fly” after being pushed off an elevated pier, and points are awarded for distance traveled. According to Keith Humphrey, building one of these machines is about a two-month process. All contraptions must be able to float and easily removed from the water. Once they hit the water, they’re no longer usable.
But, that’s not all. There are two other categories that judges consider when awarding points: “Presentation” and “Skit.” Elaborate costumes, decorations and contraption design are they key points of the presentation category, and all teams must perform a skit prior to launch.
Although it is important for teams to have a strong visual identity and an entertaining shtick, nothing matters more to the score than the flight itself. And that’s where the members of the “Flying Dead” have really shined.
PAST ADVENTURES
“The first year we did this, we were lifeguards,” Kevin Humphrey said. “It wasn’t the best theme out there — kind of boring — but we won, because we crushed the competition. We flew 109 feet, and the second-place team flew 32 feet.
“Then, in 2011, we were Willy Wonka and the Oompa-Loompas,” he said. “ Four of us were running around, painted orange, pretending to be little guys — we’re all about 6-foot-3 — and then Keith, Willy Wonka, is, like, 9 feet tall on stilts. It was great.”
This year, the crew played to the tastes of fans of the super-popular AMC television show, “The Walking Dead.” Sheriff Rick Grimes and four zombies showed up to the event in Miami, with perpetual pilot Keith playing the part of Grimes and everyone else portraying the zombies.
They built a giant, flying brain-machine and managed to get brain-panting and costume-designing help from M6FX, a special effects company involved with Busch Gardens’ annual “Howl-O-Scream” event.
“They’re six brothers, and we met them at a Halloween party last year,” Keith Humphrey said. “Some of the stuff that they make is so crazy, and when we talked to them about our idea, they loved it.”
THE BIG DAY
As soon as the “Flying Dead” set foot in the hangar, where teams could mingle with each other and with the fans in attendance, the tables were turned — the fans swarmed on them for four hours, much like the zombies in “Walking Dead” would swarm on humans.
“It was crazy,” Keith Humphrey said. “People were fighting for pictures for four hours, non-stop. We had to take shifts for pictures. I’d try to go in the back and sit and relax, but people would still come up to take pictures with me.”
The four zombies descended upon Keith, dressed as Sheriff Grimes, on the ramp. Despite getting “shot” repeatedly, the undead crew members caught the lawman and tore him apart in front of the crowd. The newly zombified Grimes then jumped to his feet, and the five zombies performed a dance routine largely inspired by Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” They then ran over to the brain-machine, pushed it down the ramp and watched, as Keith jumped out with the glider to cruise to victory.
This wasn’t the crew’s last hurrah, either. Next time, they want to go farther — to one of Red Bull’s competitions held outside of the United States.
“We usually go a few years in between (events), because we all have day jobs,” Keith Humphrey said. “It cost us $5,000 to do this — $3,500 for the glider. We want to do something internationally, so we’d just like to find sponsors who will help us pay for that.”
That idea is up in the air for now, but if it’s anything like the others, it likely will travel pretty far.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.