It’s not going to fly, but maybe, just maybe, it will glide. Or, more poetically, "gliiiiiide."

Smooth sailing — rather than precipitous plummeting — is the hope for a flying canoe built by the Aloha Stadium team, a group of surfing buddies competing in the inaugural National Red Bull Flugtag. The five-man crew will be the first Hawaii team to participate in the competition for human-powered, homemade gliders sponsored by the high-energy beverage maker.

The Sept. 21 competition wil be held simultaneously in five cities: Washington, D.C., Miami, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth and Long Beach, Calif. While a national champion will be declared for gliding the farthest in style, that’s not the main intent behind the competition: It’s equal parts human ingenuity and humorous inanity, and any flying that occurs is more accidental than intentional.

That’s fine with the Aloha Stadium group, which consists of Tak Tanabe, Erik "Beats" Beattie, Dick Chan, Chris Tseu and Kekoa Eskaran. They’re late 20- to 30-somethings, a gang of happy-go-lucky guys — always happy and needing luck to get their craft airborne for any length of time — who were picked for the contest by a local Red Bull representative.

"He showed us a YouTube video and he showed us their website, and it looked super, super fun," said Chan, 28, a refrigerator technician by day. "And with our group of friends, that’s what we are. We’re always striving to find something new, something fun, something crazy, something to kind of show off our crazy and stupid skills."

The Red Bull Flugtag (German for "flight day") launched in Vienna in 1992. The contest is held at various times during the year in such international locations as Istanbul, Moscow and Stockholm.

The contest rules limit gliders to a maximum wingspan of 28 feet and a top weight of 400 pounds, including the pilot. (A German team set the record for the longest flight at 229 feet in 2012.)

The Hawaii team will face such competitors as Game of Throwns from Hermosa Beach, Calif., and The Illuminaughty from San Diego.

Using a traditional Hawaiian sailing vessel as inspiration, the group came up with a double-hulled canoe design that features a sail that is supposed to unfurl into a horizontal wing as it is pushed off a 30-foot-high platform built over Rainbow Harbor in Long Beach. As part of the 30-team competition, the team also will perform a short skit. Showmanship is part of the judging criteria along with distance and creativity.

"We just thought of something that would represent Hawaii that’s best, and what better than a canoe?" Chan said. "That’s what traveling was before, back in the day."

The craft, dubbed Wawamalu for a stretch of Sandy Beach where the group hangs out, was built in the carport of a Kapahulu home where Tseu and Tanabe live. Its twin hulls are fashioned out of 55-gallon plastic barrels molded together with wood, fiberglass and other materials. A platform connecting the hulls will give Tanabe, who will pilot the craft, something to stand on before he bails, as many flugtag pilots do well before their creations crash — er, land.

Like a test pilot with the "right stuff," Tanabe has been keeping in shape. The carpenter is trying to keep his weight at 140 pounds by dieting on gummy bears, hoping every ounce saved will keep him and his approximately 200-pound aircraft aloft. But he has doubts.

"We make like we know what we’re doing, but we really don’t," said Tanabe, 27, who will dress as Kamehameha the Great instead of wearing a jumpsuit for the event. "I’m kind of worried, but we’ll figure it out.

"Our concept is that Hawaiians didn’t fly anywhere, they paddled everywhere and sailed everywhere, so if we fail the flight, we know that we will sail-slash-paddle away."

In fact, that really is the plan. The four crew members will have an approximately 100-foot runway to get up some speed — all by human power — before sending Tanabe and craft off the ramp. The hope is that some part of the canoe will survive the landing, which will become part of a drama enacted in the water involving the king, sharks, tourists and other characters.

"This thing is going to float, if it doesn’t break apart," said Tseu, 37, a lifeguard and handyman. "Structurally, it’s really sound. So we’re not worried about it."

The group is known as Aloha Stadium because, like a tailgate party at a Rainbow Warrior game, its members are known for having a good time. Their reputation is well-earned, with antics like building wacky rafts to float out from Waikiki during Fourth of July festivities, but they know the few minutes of fame that Flugtag will bring them will carry them to a new level of glory.

"We do a bunch of goofy things, but never on a national scale," Chan said.

Should Aloha Stadium win, the guys will fly even higher: First prize is a skydive from 15,000 feet with the Red Bull Air Force.

For updates on National Redbull Flugtag, visit redbullflugtagusa.com. Follow the Hawaii team on Twitter @alohastadium.