MAGNIFICENT men and their not so magnificent flying machines took to the skies over London's Hyde Park - but a team from Highworth was not quite so high flying.

The Crop Dusters - otherwise known as Tim Diggens, Karl Cedeira, Richard Maher and John Fogarty - launched their John Beer tractor-plane during the Redbull Flugtag in London on Sunday.

The foursome spent eight weeks creating their unique aircraft', which was so big it had to be built in an aircraft hangar at Kemble airfield.

They even had the vehicle's paint custom mixed to make their craft the same colour as a real John Deere tractor.

"It was an interesting job after our first design was rubbished in the first week," said team leader John.

"We were told we'd been selected nine weeks ago for the competition so it was all hands on deck in the lead up to the big day. Acting up in front of 80,000 cheering people was certainly an experience."

The team decided to make the challenge a charity event, raising money for Marie Curie Cancer Care - the chosen charity of John's Bristol-based business company Workplace Engineering.

John turned to Royal Mail for help transporting their craft.

"Two guys Steve and Kevin were a great help and drove the tractor to Hyde Park free of charge for us. It was a lovely gesture and meant that the money we raised could go to Marie Curie."

As part of the contest the group had to devise a ramp act' to entertain the masses before launching their craft.

They danced to Monster by The Automatic before pushing their tractor to its watery runway.

But disaster struck and as the machine fell, the wing flipped over and the flying machine plummeted into the water.

"I must admit, it wasn't something we were expecting," said John, 44.

"We picked Tim to control it as he was the lightest but as the plane took off from the ramp we realised we just had to go in after it." The team hope to have raised more than £2,500 for Marie Curie Cancer Care.