As rickety, parade-float style aircraft flew off a runway into the waters of Tampa Bay, cars in the streets of downtown Tampa came to a standstill.

That's because, according to Tampa Police and event organizers, more than 100,000 people showed up for the Flugtag. That's twice as many as organizers expected.

In fact, they say it was the largest turnout for the event in the United States.

"It's a prototype of a fixed wing parafoil," said Trisha DeMarco, describing her flying machine. She's a student at the University of Florida. "The airfoil give lift like an airplane, like a regular wing and a parachute which will give drag, hopefully and keep us in the air." Not all teams approached their project with such seriousness.

Lyndsey Knepper was the pilot of a flying boot. When asked if the boot had flown yet she said "...not at all, we're kind of playing it by ear." (The boot did fly once…Knepper acknowledges it was when it flew off the back of a flat bed truck.)

Even the U.S. Air Force had an entry. Their bird's wing's got clipped at the last minute.

"We had the wing supported by some fishing line, and someone knocked it over," said pilot Annie Erdekain.

Police say that there were a few cases of heat exhaustion, and two misdemeanor arrests, but otherwise, there were no major problems to report.