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The Gossamer Albatross is a human-powered aircraft built by American aeronautical engineer Dr Paul B MacCready's company AeroVironment. On June 12, 1979, it completed a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the second Kremer prize worth £100,000.
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan is a retired American aerospace engineer and entrepreneur noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, and energy-efficient air and space craft. He designed the record-breaking Voyager, which in 1986 was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling. He also designed the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, which in 2006 set the world record for the fastest and longest nonstop non-refueled circumnavigation flight in history. In 2004, Rutan's sub-orbital spaceplane design SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded spacecraft to enter the realm of space, winning the Ansari X-Prize that year for achieving the feat twice within a two-week period.
The year 1979 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.
The MacCready Gossamer Condor was the first human-powered aircraft capable of controlled and sustained flight; as such, it won the Kremer prize in 1977. Its design was led by Paul MacCready of AeroVironment, Inc.
The Kremer prizes are a series of monetary awards, established in 1959 by the industrialist Henry Kremer.
Taras Kiceniuk Jr. is a hang glider pioneer from southern California.
Paul B. MacCready Jr. was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the first Kremer prize. He devoted his life to developing more efficient transportation vehicles that could "do more with less".
AeroVironment, Inc. is an American defense contractor headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, that designs and manufactures unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Paul B. MacCready Jr., a designer of human-powered aircraft, founded the company in 1971. The company is best known for its lightweight human-powered and solar-powered vehicles. The company is the US military's top supplier of small drones —notably the Raven, Switchblade, Wasp and Puma models.
The Monarch B was a human-powered aircraft, designed and built by graduates and undergraduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and won the £20,000 first prize for the Kremer World Speed Competition. It is a successor to the Monarch A HPA which preceded it.
The Solar Challenger was a solar-powered electric aircraft designed by Paul MacCready's AeroVironment. The aircraft was designed as an improvement on the Gossamer Penguin, which in turn was a solar-powered variant of the human-powered Gossamer Albatross. It was powered entirely by the photovoltaic cells on its wing and stabilizer, without even reserve batteries, and was the first such craft capable of long-distance flight. In 1981, it successfully completed a 163-mile (262 km) demonstration flight from France to England.
The Gossamer Penguin was a solar-powered experimental aircraft created by Paul MacCready's AeroVironment. MacCready, whose Gossamer Condor in 1977 won the Kremer prize for human-powered flight, told reporters two weeks in June, 1980 that "The first solar-powered flight ever made took place on May 18." The testing ground was at Minter Field outside of Shafter, California.
The Flight of the Gossamer Condor is a 1978 American short documentary film directed by Ben Shedd, about the development of the Gossamer Condor, the first human-powered aircraft, by a team led by Paul MacCready. The Academy Film Archive preserved The Flight of the Gossamer Condor in 2007.
The PSU Zephyrus is a human-powered aircraft being constructed by the Penn State AERSP 404H team. It is a composite material, single-seat, single propeller, high-wing airplane. The Zephyrus is designed to compete in the Kremer prize sport competition.
A human-powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered transport.
The Southampton University Man Powered Aircraft on 9 November 1961 became the first human-powered aeroplane to make an officially authenticated take-off and flight. It was designed and built by Southampton university students between 1960 and 1961 for an attempt at the Kremer prize, but it was never able to complete the 'figure-of-eight' course specified to claim the prize money.
The University of Maryland Gamera I is a human-powered helicopter designed to win the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize.
The HPA Toucan is a British two-seat human-powered aircraft built and flown by members of the Hertfordshire Pedal Aeronauts and was the first two-person human-powered aircraft to fly.
The University of Maryland Gamera II is an improved human-powered helicopter designed to win the US$250,000 Sikorsky Prize.
The White Dwarf is a human-powered dirigible built in 1984 that set several world records.
The Goodhart Newbury Manflier was a two-place human-powered aircraft designed by Nicholas Goodhart. Its most notable feature was that the two pilots were placed in separate fuselages, spaced 70 ft apart.
References
- ↑ Bryan Allen - hardest-working pilot ever
- ↑ "MacCready "Gossamer Albatross" | National Air and Space Museum". Archived from the original on June 15, 2015. Retrieved June 12, 2015. Description of Gossamer Albatross in Smithsonian Museum
- ↑ Archived May 25, 2015, at the Wayback Machine The White Dwarf Flies Again
- ↑ Sugar, James & Stephan Wilkinson (June 1986). "Who Is Bryan Allen?". Air and Space Magazine: 49.
- ↑ The care and feeding of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Ground Data System (GDS) Archived May 27, 2010, at the Wayback Machine (2005), NASA Technical Reports Server, Allen et al. authors
