Man-powered flight
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Man-powered flight is aerial travel in an aircraft powered exclusively by direct human energy.
Early attempts at man-powered flight were unsuccessful because of the difficulty of achieving the high power-to-weight ratio. Prototypes often used ornithopter principles which were not only too heavy to meet this requirement but aerodynamically unsatisfactory.
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[edit] The Royal Aeronautical Society Man Powered Flight Group
The 'Man Powered Aircraft Group' of the Royal Aeronautical Society originated in 1959 when the members of the Man Powered Group of the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield were invited to become a group of the Society. Its title was changed from 'Man' to 'Human" in 1988 in recognition of the many successful flights by woman pilots.
Under the auspices of the Society, in 1959 the industrialist Henry Kremer offered the Kremer Prizes of £5,000 for the first man-powered aeroplane to fly a figure-of-eight course round two markers half-a-mile apart.
[edit] First flights
A craft called HV-1 Mufli (Muskelkraft-Flugzeug) built by Helmut Hässler & de:Franz Villinger first flew on 30 August 1935: a distance of 235 metres at Halle an der Saale. 120 flights were made, the longest being 712 metres in 1937. However it was launched using a tensioned cable and so was not strictly human-powered.
Bossi & Bonomi met a challenge by the Italian Government for a flight of one kilometre using their Pedaliante in March 1937 but this is also disputed because it was catapulted nine metres into the air. [1]
The first officially authenticated take-off and landing of a man powered aircraft (one capable of powered take-offs, unlike a glider) was made on 9 November 1961 by Derek Piggott in Southampton University's Man Powered Aircraft (SUMPA). The best flight was 650 metres.
The Puffin first flew in 16 November 1961, one week after SUMPA . Eventually its best distance was 908 metres. John Wimpenny landed in a state of physical exhaustion. His record stood for 10 years.
Puffin 2 flew on 27 August 1965 and made several flights over a half-mile, including a climb to 5.2 metres. In 1967 Kremer increased his prize money tenfold to £50,000, for no-one had even attempted his challenging course. He also opened the competition to all nationalities as it had previously been restricted to British entries only. After this date several less successful aircraft flew, until 1972 when the Jupiter flew 1,070 metres and 1,239 metres in June 1972.
In 23 August 1977 the Gossamer Condor 2 flew the first figure-of-eight, a distance of 2,172 metres winning the first Kremer prize. It was built by Dr Paul B. MacCready. and piloted by amateur cyclist and hang-glider pilot Bryan Allen.
[edit] Later flights
The second Kremer prize of £100,000 was won on June 12, 1979, again by Paul MacCready, when Bryan Allen flew MacCready's Gossamer Albatross from England to France: a straight distance of 35.82 km (22 miles 453 yards) in 2 hours, 49 minutes.
A Kremer prize of £20,000 for speed went on 1 May 1984 to a design team of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for flying their MIT Monarch B craft on a triangular 1.5 km course in under three minutes (for an average speed of 32 km/h): pilot Frank Scarabino. Further prizes of £5,000 are awarded to each subsequent entrant improving the speed by at least five percent.
The first human-powered passenger flight occurred on 1 October 1984 when Holger Rochelt carried his sister Katrin in Musculair 1.
The current distance record recognised by the FAI was achieved on 23 April 1988 from Iraklion on Crete to Santorini in a MIT Daedalus 88 piloted by Kanellos Kanellopoulos: a straight distance of 115.11 km (74 miles).
On 10 December 1989 the first man-powered helicopter, the California Polytechnic State University Da Vinci III, flew for 7.1 seconds and reached a height of 20 cm.
[edit] Current activity
Machines have been built and flown in Japan, Germany, Greece, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Austria, Canada, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom, with their total number approaching a hundred.
With further funds from the late Henry Kremer, the Royal Aeronautical Society has announced four new prizes:[2]
- £50,000 for the Kremer International Marathon Competition for a flight round a specified twenty six mile Marathon distance course, in a time of under one hour,
- £100,000 for the Kremer International Sporting Aircraft Competition for a sporting aeroplane able to operate in normal weather conditions, as encountered in the United Kingdom
- £1,000 for the Schools Competition
- £500 for The Robert Graham Competition for students for experimental research or engineering design
The eventual aim is to achieve Olympic recognition as a sport.
[edit] Airships
French inventors have built man-powered airships. By cancelling out the force of gravity, much less effort is required to power the aircraft.[3][4]
