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Cook Musfly
The ''Musfly'' was a British two-seat human-powered tailless aircraft built by David Cook in the 1970s. Background Intended to win the Kremer prize, the ''Musfly'' was designed by David Cook and Neil Moran, who at the time were employees at Richard Garrett & Sons, at Leiston, in Suffolk. The aircraft was a wire-braced high-wing tailless monoplane. The wing planform was made up of a central constant-chord swept wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigate ..., with anhedral wing-tips. "Draggons" (upward deflecting ailerons) fitted to the wing-tips would provide lateral and directional control. Pitch control would be by weight shift, with the crewed capsule, suspended beneath the wing, being moved back and forth. In the capsule, the two-person crew would opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human-powered Aircraft
A human-powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered transport. Human-powered aircraft have been successfully flown over considerable distances. However, they are still primarily constructed as engineering challenges rather than for any kind of recreational or utilitarian purpose. History 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. First attempts In 1904, Scientific American published an article and a photograph of a bicycle plane built by Steward Winslow of Riparia, Washington. He attempted to fly his plane on 30 July 1904, but one of the wheels failed. An early human-powered aircraft was the Gerhardt Cycleplane, developed by W. Frederick Gerhardt at McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio in 1923. The aircraft h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HPA Toucan
__NOTOC__ 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. Development The Hertfordshire Pedal Aeronauts was formed in 1965, mainly from the staff of Handley Page Limited, to design and build a human-powered aircraft and to compete for the Kremer Prize. The aircraft, unique in being powered by two persons, was designed by Martyn Pressnell. Pressnell was at the time a stress engineer with Handley Page. Partly funded by a grant from the Royal Aeronautical Society construction began in 1967 and was completed in 1972. Following taxying trials at Radlett Aerodrome on 16 June 1972 when brief hops were made, the aircraft made its first flight on 23 December 1972. Flown by Bryan Bowen with Derek May as crewman the longest flight was , the Toucan flew again on 3 July 1973 for and achieved a height of . Design The Toucan is a mid-wing cantilever monoplan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pusher Aircraft
In an aircraft with a pusher configuration (as opposed to a tractor configuration), the propeller(s) are mounted behind their respective engine(s). Since a pusher propeller is mounted behind the engine, the drive shaft is in compression in normal operation. Pusher configuration describes this specific (propeller or ducted fan) thrust device attached to a craft, either aerostat (airship) or aerodyne (aircraft, WIG, paramotor, rotorcraft) or others types such as hovercraft, airboat and propeller-driven snowmobiles. "Pusher configuration" also describes the layout of a fixed-wing aircraft in which the thrust device has a pusher configuration. This kind of aircraft is commonly called a pusher. Pushers have been designed and built in many different layouts, some of them quite radical. History The rubber-powered "Planophore", designed by Alphonse Pénaud in 1871, was an early successful model aircraft with a pusher propeller. Many early aircraft (especially biplanes) were ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High-wing Aircraft
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplane (aeronautics), multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing configuration and is the simplest to build. However, during the early years of flight, these advantages were offset by its greater weight and lower manoeuvrability, making it relatively rare until the 1930s. Since then, the monoplane has been the most common form for a fixed-wing aircraft. Characteristics Support and weight The inherent efficiency of the monoplane is best achieved in the cantilever wing, which carries all structural forces internally. However, to fly at practical speeds the wing must be made thin, which requires a heavy structure to make it strong and stiff enough. External Bracing (aeronautics), bracing can be used to improve structural efficiency, reducing weight and cost. For a wing of a given size, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Human-powered Aircraft
This is a list of human-powered aircraft A human-powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered transport. Human-powered aircraft have been successfully flown over considerable distances. However, they are still primarily constructed a ... by date. See also * History of human-powered aircraft References Further reading * External links Chris Roper's online book ''Human Powered Flying''Prop designer Vélair – Yuri human-powered helicopter – YouTube video [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Southend MPG Mayfly
__NOTOC__ The Southend MPG ''Mayfly'' was a British two-seat human-powered aircraft built by members of the Southend Man-Powered Group in the 1960s. It was one of the first two-person human-powered aircraft to have been built and tested, although it never flew. Development The Southend Man Powered Group was formed by Brian Kerry, an aerodynamicist then working at Aviation Traders company, in order to help realise a two-person human-powered aircraft he had designed, though several other members of the group later provided design input. The original design dated from 1960, and construction started during the summer of 1961. Originally intended to be completed by May 1962, resource and construction issues meant that the first flight trials did not take place till July 1965. Although some observers claim they saw light under the wheels on some runs, no flights were made. Issues around poor design and execution impacted the enthusiasm of the members of the Southend MP Group, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MacCready Gossamer Condor
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. Design and development The Kremer Prize had been set up in 1959 by Henry Kremer, a British industrialist, and offered £50,000 in prize money to the first group that could fly a human-powered aircraft over a figure-eight course covering a total of one mile (1.6 kilometers). The course also included a ten-foot pole that the aircraft had to fly over at the start and at the end. Early attempts to build human-powered aircraft had focused on wooden designs, which proved too heavy. Very early attempts – notably the ' and ''Pedaliante'' – used catapult launches. In 1961, Southampton University's Man Powered Aircraft SUMPAC took to the air at Lasham Airfield on 9 November, piloted by Derek Piggott, achieving a maximum flight of 650 metres. One week later, on 16 N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MacCready Gossamer Albatross
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 (). Design and development The aircraft was designed and built by a team led by Paul B. MacCready, a noted American aeronautics engineer, designer, and world soaring champion. ''Gossamer Albatross'' was his second human-powered aircraft, the first being the ''Gossamer Condor'', which had won the first Kremer prize on August 23, 1977, by completing a -long figure-eight course. The second Kremer challenge was then announced as a flight across the English Channel recalling Louis Blériot's crossing of 1909. The aircraft is of " canard" configuration, using a large horizontal stabilizer forward of the wing in a manner similar to the Wright brothers' successful ''Wright Flyer'' aircraft and powered using pedals to drive a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goodhart Newbury Manflier
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. Design and development The genesis of the aircraft was detailed in a paper presented at a 1974 conference hosted by the Man-Powered Aircraft Group of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and later published in its Journal. In the paper, after initially describing the requirements for an aircraft to win the Kremer Prize then on offer, Goodhart proposed a two-person monoplane, with a 100 ft wingspan, with each pilot being located in separate nacelles at the wingtips. This configuration would reduce the bending moments on the wing spar, and hence the overall weight. Turning radius would be in the order of 1,000 ft, and with each pilot generating 0.20 hp (or 140 watts) to maintain flight. The design evolved, so that when construction of the Newbury Manflier com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aileron
An aileron (French for "little wing" or "fin") is a hinged flight control surface usually forming part of the trailing edge of each wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. Ailerons are used in pairs to control the aircraft in roll (or movement around the aircraft's longitudinal axis), which normally results in a change in flight path due to the tilting of the lift vector. Movement around this axis is called 'rolling' or 'banking'. Considerable controversy exists over credit for the invention of the aileron. The Wright brothers and Glenn Curtiss fought a years-long legal battle over the Wright patent of 1906, which described a method of wing-warping to achieve lateral control. The brothers prevailed in several court decisions which found that Curtiss's use of ailerons violated the Wright patent. Ultimately, the First World War compelled the U.S. Government to legislate a legal resolution. A much earlier aileron concept was patented in 1868 by British scientist Matthew Piers Watt Bou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kremer Prize
The Kremer prizes are a series of monetary awards, established in 1959 by the industrialist Henry Kremer. Royal Aeronautical Society Human Powered Flight Group 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. The first Kremer prize of £50,000 was won on 23 August 1977 by Dr. P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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