MIT Daedalus
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MIT Daedalus
The MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's Daedalus was a human-powered aircraftJohn McIntyreMan's Greatest Flight, ''AeroModeller'', August 1988 (in files of Royal Aeronautical Society Human Powered Aircraft Group) (accessed Nov. 13 2012) that, on 23 April 1988, flew a distance of 72.4 mi (115.11 km) in 3 hours, 54 minutes, from Heraklion on the island of Crete to the island of Santorini. The flight holds official FAI world records for total distance, straight-line distance, and duration for human-powered aircraft. The craft was named after the mythological inventor of aviation, Daedalus, and was inspired by the Greek myth of Daedalus' escape from Crete using manmade wings. There were actually three aircraft constructed: * ''Light Eagle'' (originally ''Michelob Light Eagle''): a 42 kg (92 lb) prototype. * ''Daedalus 87'': Crashed during testing at Rogers Dry Lake (NASA Dryden Flight Research Center) on 17 February 1988, and was rebuilt as a backup. * ...
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United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ...
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Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most-populous city, and Fairfax County is the most-populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population was over 8.65million, with 36% of them living in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607, the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent English colony in the New World. Virginia's state nickname, the Old Dominion, is a reference to this status. Slave labor and land acquired from displaced native tribes fueled the ...
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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 ...
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Aircraft First Flown In 1988
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine A jet engine is a type of reaction engine discharging a fast-moving jet of heated gas (usually air) that generates thrust by jet propulsion. While this broad definition can include rocket, Pump-jet, water jet, and hybrid propulsion, the term ...s. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships (including blimps), Glider (aircraft), gliders, Powered paragliding, paramotors, and hot air balloons. The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called ''aviation''. The science of aviation, including designing and building aircraft, is called ''aeronautics.'' Aircrew, Crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard Aircraft pilot, pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or self-controlled by onboard comp ...
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National Geographic (magazine)
''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely read magazines of all time. The magazine was founded in 1888 as a scholarly journal, nine months after the establishment of the society, but is now a popular magazine. In 1905, it began including pictures, a style for which it became well-known. Its first color photos appeared in the 1910s. During the Cold War, the magazine committed itself to present a balanced view of the physical and human geography of countries beyond the Iron Curtain. Later, the magazine became outspoken on environmental issues. Since 2019, controlling interest has been held by The Walt Disney Company. Topics of features generally concern geography, history, nature, science, and world culture. The magazine is well known for its distinctive appearance: a thick squa ...
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Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the Geography of Greece, mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Sea of Crete and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin, featuring List of islands of Greece, thousands of islands. The country consists of nine Geographic regions of Greece, traditional geographic regions, and has a population of approximately 10.4 million. Athens is the nation's capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city, followed by Thessaloniki and Patras. Greece is considered the cradle of Western culture, Western civilization, being the birthplace of Athenian ...
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Kanellos Kanellopoulos
Kanellos Kanellopoulos (born 25 April 1957) is a Greek former cyclist. He competed in the individual road race event at the 1984 Summer Olympics. He was also the pilot and human engine for the 1988 MIT Daedalus project, completing the 72.4 mi (115.11 km) flight from Crete to the Greek island of Santorini in 3 hours, 54 minutes. It was the longest human-powered flight in history. Major results ;1976 : 2nd Road race, National Road Championships ;1980 : 1st Road race, National Road Championships ;1981 : 1st Overall Tour of Hellas ;1982 : 1st Road race, National Road Championships ;1984 : 1st Road race, National Road Championships ;1985 : 1st Road race, National Road Championships ;1986 : 2nd Overall Tour of Hellas ;1987 : 1st Road race, National Road Championships : 2nd Overall Tour of Hellas The International Tour of Hellas is a road bicycle racing stage race. It consists of five stages and is usually held between April and May. The race was first held ...
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Reynolds Number
In fluid mechanics, the Reynolds number () is a dimensionless quantity that helps predict fluid flow patterns in different situations by measuring the ratio between inertial and viscous forces. At low Reynolds numbers, flows tend to be dominated by laminar (sheet-like) flow, while at high Reynolds numbers flows tend to be turbulent. The turbulence results from differences in the fluid's speed and direction, which may sometimes intersect or even move counter to the overall direction of the flow ( eddy currents). These eddy currents begin to churn the flow, using up energy in the process, which for liquids increases the chances of cavitation. The Reynolds number has wide applications, ranging from liquid flow in a pipe to the passage of air over an aircraft wing. It is used to predict the transition from laminar to turbulent flow and is used in the scaling of similar but different-sized flow situations, such as between an aircraft model in a wind tunnel and the full-size ve ...
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Airfoil
An airfoil (American English) or aerofoil (British English) is the cross-sectional shape of an object whose motion through a gas is capable of generating significant lift, such as a wing, a sail, or the blades of propeller, rotor, or turbine. A solid body moving through a fluid produces an aerodynamic force. The component of this force perpendicular to the relative freestream velocity is called lift. The component parallel to the relative freestream velocity is called drag. An airfoil is a streamlined shape that is capable of generating significantly more lift than drag. Airfoils can be designed for use at different speeds by modifying their geometry: those for subsonic flight generally have a rounded leading edge, while those designed for supersonic flight tend to be slimmer with a sharp leading edge. All have a sharp trailing edge. Foils of similar function designed with water as the working fluid are called hydrofoils. The lift on an airfoil is primarily the result o ...
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XFOIL
XFOIL is an interactive program for the design and analysis of subsonic isolated airfoils. Given the coordinates specifying the shape of a 2D airfoil, Reynolds and Mach numbers, XFOIL can calculate the pressure distribution on the airfoil and hence lift and drag characteristics. The program also allows ''inverse design'' - it will vary an airfoil shape to achieve the desired parameters. It is released under the GNU GPL. History XFOIL was first developed by Mark Drela at MIT as a design tool for the MIT Daedalus project in the 1980s. It was further developed in collaboration with Harold Youngren. The current version is 6.99, released in December 2013. Despite its vintage, it is still widely used. XFOIL is written in FORTRAN. Similar software {{external links, date=December 2021 * XFOIL was translated to the C++ language and integrated in the program XFLR5, principally for use on model aircraft design. * A MATLAB implementation calleXfoil for matlabhas been written. * An u ...
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Mark Drela
Mark Drela (July 1, 1959) is an American aeronautical engineer, currently the Professor of Fluid Dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an Elected Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He is primarily concerned with computational engineering, design, and optimization. Drela is famed for his work on aerodynamics softwares: * XFOIL for airfoil analysis using a panel method * Athena Vortex Lattice (AVL) for flight dynamic analysis using a vortex lattice method * MISES for design and analysis of turbo machinery blading In 2009, Drela was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ... for creation of breakthrough aircraft designs and design software that enabled operation in n ...
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Paul E
Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Christian missionary and writer *Pope Paul (other), multiple Popes of the Roman Catholic Church *Saint Paul (other), multiple other people and locations named "Saint Paul" Roman and Byzantine empire *Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus (c. 229 BC – 160 BC), Roman general *Julius Paulus Prudentissimus (), Roman jurist *Paulus Catena (died 362), Roman notary *Paulus Alexandrinus (4th century), Hellenistic astrologer *Paul of Aegina or Paulus Aegineta (625–690), Greek surgeon Royals *Paul I of Russia (1754–1801), Tsar of Russia *Paul of Greece (1901–1964), King of Greece Other people *Paul the Deacon or Paulus Diaconus (c. 720 – c. 799), Italian Benedictine monk *Paul (father of Maurice), the father of Maurice, Byzan ...
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