Human-powered flight

A human-powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered vehicles. Early attempts at human-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.

As of 2008, human-powered aircraft have been successfully flown over considerable distances. However, they are primarily constructed as engineering challenges rather than for any kind of recreational or utilitarian purpose.

The Royal Aeronautical Society's "Man Powered Aircraft Group" was formed in 1959 by the members of the Man Powered Group of the College of Aeronautics at Cranfield when they were invited to join the Society. Its title was changed from "Man" to "Human" in 1988 because of the many successful flights made by female pilots.

Under the auspices of the Society, in 1959 the industrialist Henry Kremer offered the first Kremer Prizes of £5,000 for the first human-powered aircraft to fly a figure-of-eight course round two markers half-a-mile apart. It was conditional that the designer, entrant pilot, place of construction and flight must all be British. In 1973 Kremer increased the prize to £50,000 and opened it to all nationalities, to stimulate interest.

An early human-powered aircraft was the Gerhardt Cycleplane, developed by W. Frederick Gerhardt at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio in 1923. The aircraft had seven wings stacked nearly 15 feet (4.6 m) high. The pilot pedaled a bicycle gear that turned the propeller. In early tests the aircraft was towed into the air by an automobile, and released. With Gerhardt as the pilot, the Cycleplane was able to maintain stable, level flight for short durations. Its only human-powered takeoff was a short hop of 20 feet (6.1 m) with the craft rising 2 feet (0.61 m).

In 1934, Engelbert Zaschka from Germany completed a large human-powered aircraft, the Zaschka Human-Power Aircraft. On 11 July 1934, the Zaschka-HPA flew about 20 meters on the Berlin Tempelhof Airport; the HPA took off without assisted takeoff.

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Wikipedia