Scott Pollard Moomba Birdman 2026

05/03/2026

Here's a sneak peek at Sammy J's Moomba birdman craft! He'll be harnessing the awesome aeronautical properties of Flinders St station 😄

🚨 COSTUME REVEAL 🚨 This Sunday I will be diving into Melbourne's Yarra river dressed as Melbourne's greatest building - Flinders Street Station. All raising money for Big Brothers Big Sisters as part of the Moomba Birdman rally! You can watch me plummet four metres down from 11am along with my fellow competitors and if you'd like to donate head to link in bio. Thanks to my co-monarch for her donation and emotional support as I prepare to take the plunge. Costume design by .make.me 🕥🚆🦋

03/03/2026

Here's a sneak peek at Ann Hansen's Very Grumpy Caterpillar for this weekend's Moomba Birdman Rally!
https://birdmanrally2026.gofundraise.com.au/page/TheVeryGrumpyCaterpillar #

01/03/2026

Here's an amazing 8mm home movie of one of the very first Moomba Birdman rallies in the late 1970s, back when it used to be held next to the Swan Street bridge. The sponsors were TV channel ATV-10 and Solomon's Carpets, and at about 12:58 into the video we even get a special appearance of TV celebrity Fat Cat! The birdman platform back in those days was exceedingly rickety, that part of the river seems awfully shallow and it looks like everyone had trouble climbing that steep ramp

Birdman Rally is a competition where members of the public build home-made gliders, hang gliders and human-powered aircraft, ranging from very serious aircra...

23/02/2026

Here's an old 1973 Movietone newsreel of the 3rd International Birdman Competition, back where it all started in Selsey UK. The launch platform is pretty much just a plank so the competitors could barely get a run up at all, but they did get to choose which direction they wanted to jump in case they preferred a tailwind instead of a headwind. It didn't seem to make much difference either way. 😆💨🛩️

(23 Aug 1973) The third International Birdman Rally at Selsey, won by John Bond, of Westbourne, Emsworth, whilst still making a splash, he was 23 yards short...

23/02/2026

Hopping across the pond to check out our birdman neighbours, here's an upload of the TV broadcast of the 1989 Tauranga NZ birdman rally. The rickety platform they built was remarkably narrow (and the ramp was even narrower yet!) so the emcee had to duck down and crawl back under the larger craft so the pilots & crews could get into position.
Also note that the pilots had to swim back to shore on their own, towing their craft behind them. There was a rescue boat on standby but they obviously weren't too keen on doing any rescues if they weren't absolutely required. 😆

Sponsered by Tip Top Ice Cream and Radio B.O.P. a crazy Birdman contest held on The Tauranga Waterfront April 1st, 1989.

21/02/2026

Here's a great segment about the 1999 Moomba Birdman rally from the old channel 7 late night satire/current affairs show The Late Report. It follows birdman competitor George Vassis as he tries to move past his disastrous "U-turn flight" of 1993 and re-establish himself as a serious birdman contender.
The event was hosted by Larry Emdur that year (back when he used to have hair!) and sponsored by M&Ms, and at one point you can see someone wearing a yellow M&M mascot costume and stuffed inside a poorly constructed rocket getting tossed off the platform into the Yarra, which must have been terrifying.

George Vassis is a birdman. Tony Wilson met him at the Birdman Rally, Moomba 1999. Filmed for 'The Late Report'.

17/02/2026

Birdman rallies have been popular all around the world since the 1970s and in the Netherlands they actually had a birdman-themed TV series from 1973 onward which ran for 37 seasons. For the first few years this was only an annual TV special but from 1978 onwards they expanded the scope and filmed episodes all around the country, adding extra 'wacky' events such as 'tobbedansen' ("tub dancing", launching a homemade boat down a steep ramp), "fiets 'm d'r in"" ("bike 'em in", riding a bicycle along a long narrow plank across water) and 'achteruitrijden' ("backing up", a backwards car race). The show ended in 2011 but was revived in 2024.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Te_land,_ter_zee_en_in_de_lucht
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0O2pT4cvbM

Te land, ter zee en in de lucht is een door René Stokvis bedacht TROS-programma dat begon in 1971 met het onderdeel 'Vlieg er eens uit'. Dit is een impressi...