 A human powered airplane, Daedalus, has flown 74 miles. |
In 1961, the SUMPAC airplane was flown in England. The first to fly in North America was Olympian in 1976. In 1979, IHPVA founder Paul MacCready’s Gossamer Albatross won a Kremer prize for crossing the English Channel. In May 1988 MIT’s Daedalus was pedaled 74 miles across the Aegean Sea by Kannellos Kanelopoulos. In 1989 the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) certified that Cal Poly’s DaVinci III flight of 6.8 seconds was the first successful flight of a human powered helicopter. At an event in Seattle in 1994 a Japanese team more than trebled the time. N. Ikeuchi flew Akira Naito’s ,Yuri I, for 24 seconds. Gossamer Albatross’ pilot Bryan Allen pedaled the human powered helium gas airship (blimp) White Dwarf, built for the comedian Gallagher, to a NAA record 58.1 miles in 1985. Japan now hosts the annual Bird Man Rally. |