Leg-powered flight plan

Press, 28 March 1979, Page 10

Leg-powered flight plan

NZPA Reuter Los Angeles Human muscles will lift an aircraft across the English Channel this spring or summer, according to Californians who, in 1977, accomplished the longest sustained, controlled “man-powered” flight. Dr Paul McCready, a physicist, is the chief designer of the new, more advanced plane for the attempted channel flight. He told reporters that he is often asked: “What is the value of human-powered flight and what is its future?” Dr McCready takes joy in answering: “One of the greatest charms of this programme is that it is a great challenge — and fun — and yet it may have no practical application whatsoever.” Man, he said, has yearned for centuries to fly under his own power. That was achieved on August 23, 1977. when the Gossamer Condor, a shimmering, almost translucent 32kg craft, powered by a man pedalling a bicyclelike chain-drive that turned a propeller, flew on a low-altitude figure-eight course of 1.85 km in an agricultural valley north of Los Angeles. The aircraft, made principally of high-strength, light-weight plastic composite materials, flew for more than seven minutes. Its designers were awarded a prize of almost $lOO,OOO that had been posted 18 years earlier by a British industrialist, Henry Kramer, as a reward for the first controlled human-powered flight. c u <- The new craft, the Gossamer Albatross, has a 29m wingspan, longer

than that of a DC9 jet. Its. weight has been reduced to 25kg by the use of still more advanced light-weight composite materials and aerodynamic refinements. Bryan Allen, a 26-year-old cycling enthusiast, will attempt to propel it 35km across the Channel, skimming 3m to 9m above water from the coast of Dover to Cape Gris-nez, the shortest path from England to France. His legs must produce onequarter of one horsepower to keep the aircraft aloft in level flight. At the expected average speed of 17km/h. Allen is likely to have to pedal the

craft a minimum of two hours. Boats will follow and guide him and be ready in an emergency. “Our goal again is the Kramer prize,” Dr McCready said, referring to another prize of £IOO,OOO about $189,740) that Kramer posted for the first man-powered plane to fly unassisted between England and France.

Dr McCready said that he and his associates would establish a base in Dover in early May and begin waiting for an ideal day — one with clear weather and winds of less than 9km/h.

Building the aircraft and trying for the prize would cost about $200,000, underwritten by the Du Pont Corporation which makes many of the synthetic materials used in the craft. The 20 persons planning the flight, most of whom are graduates of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, confess to a fascination with finding and sweeping away the remaining barriers to flight, in an age when the jet engine and rocketry seemed to have already broken most barriers.