Thousands of spectators turned out yesterday to watch the International Birdman contest at Bognor Regis in West Sussex, in which an assortment of raggle-taggle characters make a leap for glory from the pier in unpowered home-made flying machines.
Some dressed as birds for the annual event, which celebrates human attempts to defy gravity, but no one won the £25,000 top prize for the aviator who made the longest flight over 100 metres — and no one ever has.