The
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's Daedalus was a
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 ...
[John McIntyre]
Man'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
Heraklion or Iraklion ( ; el, Ηράκλειο, , ) is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in Greece with a population of 211,370 (Urban A ...
on the island of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
to the island of
Santorini
Santorini ( el, Σαντορίνη, ), officially Thira (Greek: Θήρα ) and classical Greek Thera (English pronunciation ), is an island in the southern Aegean Sea, about 200 km (120 mi) southeast from the Greek mainland. It is the ...
. 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
In Greek mythology, Daedalus (, ; Greek: Δαίδαλος; Latin: ''Daedalus''; Etruscan: ''Taitale'') was a skillful architect and craftsman, seen as a symbol of wisdom, knowledge and power. He is the father of Icarus, the uncle of Perdix, a ...
, 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
Rogers Dry Lake is an endorheic desert salt pan in the Mojave Desert of Kern County, California. The lake derives its name from the Anglicization from the Spanish name, Rodriguez Dry Lake. It is the central part of Edwards Air Force Base as its ...
(NASA Dryden Flight Research Center) on 17 February 1988, and was rebuilt as a backup.
* ''Daedalus 88'': Flew from Crete to just off the beach on Santorini.
Both ''Daedalus 87'' and ''Daedalus 88 weighed 31 kg (69 lb).
All three aircraft were constructed at the
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and dev ...
Flight Facility at
Hanscom Field
Laurence G. Hanscom Field , commonly known as Hanscom Field, is a public use airport operated by the Massachusetts Port Authority, located outside Boston in Bedford, Massachusetts, United States.
Hanscom is mainly a general aviation airport, ...
outside Boston, Massachusetts, by a team of undergraduate students, faculty, and recent graduates of MIT.
History
The MIT Daedalus project was the follow-on to several earlier human-powered aircraft flown at MIT, and was designed by veterans of the Chrysalis HPA and the MIT Monarch and
Monarch-B missions.
The team members composing the Daedalus project went on to make notable contributions to experimental aeronautics such as founding the
Aurora Flight Sciences
Aurora Flight Sciences is an American aviation and aeronautics research subsidiary of Boeing which primarily specializes in the design and construction of special-purpose Unmanned aerial vehicles. Aurora has been established for 20+ years and th ...
company.
Aircraft
Light Eagle
''Light Eagle'' (known to the flight crew as ''MLE'', or ''Emily'') set a closed-course distance record with Glen Tremml as the pilot, as well as straight-line, closed-course, and duration women's records with
Lois McCallin Lois McCallin (born c. 1956) holds the world record distance and endurance for female human powered flight.
On January 21, 1987 McCallin, an amateur triathlete flew 15.44 kilometers in 37 minutes, 38 seconds in the MIT Daedalus project's human-powe ...
as pilot. These record flights took place at
Edwards AFB
Edwards Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force installation in California. Most of the base sits in Kern County, but its eastern end is in San Bernardino County and a southern arm is in Los Angeles County. The hub of the base is E ...
(NASA
Dryden Flight Research Center
The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical rese ...
) in January, 1987.
''Light Eagle'' had been in storage in
Manassas,
VA, but in 2009 was restored and adapted for use as an unmanned solar-powered aircraft testbed by
Aurora Flight Sciences
Aurora Flight Sciences is an American aviation and aeronautics research subsidiary of Boeing which primarily specializes in the design and construction of special-purpose Unmanned aerial vehicles. Aurora has been established for 20+ years and th ...
.
Daedalus 87
![Daedalus 87 Dulles Terminal B](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Daedalus_87_Dulles_Terminal_B.jpg)
''Daedalus 87'' was the first of the two Daedalus airplanes constructed, and was flight tested extensively at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in California.
[NASA Dryde]
Daedalus Human Powered Aircraft
page (accessed Nov. 13 2012) During flight testing, ''Daedalus 87'' was damaged in a crash caused by spiral divergence, with the rudder not able to supply enough control authority to recover from a disturbance-initiated right turn. The aircraft suffered damage to the right wing, fuselage, and propeller. ''Daedalus 87'' was repaired and returned to service to act as a backup airplane to ''Daedalus 88''.
''Daedalus 87'' was on display in the lobby at the
Museum of Science, Boston
The Museum of Science (MoS) is a science museum and indoor zoo in Boston, Massachusetts, located in Science Park, a plot of land spanning the Charles River. Along with over 700 interactive exhibits, the museum features a number of live presentat ...
until 2009, and is now on display above the tram stop for Terminal B at
Dulles Airport
Washington Dulles International Airport , typically referred to as Dulles International Airport, Dulles Airport, Washington Dulles, or simply Dulles ( ), is an international airport in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Eastern United States, loc ...
outside Washington, DC.
Daedalus 88
The final aircraft in the MIT Daedalus series, ''Daedalus 88'', was used in the flight from Crete.
Pieces of ''Daedalus 88'' are now in storage at the
Smithsonian's restoration facility.
Both Daedalus aircraft were constructed with a framework of carbon fiber tubes. Airfoil shape for the wing and tail elements was maintained with a thin polystyrene foam leading edge, polystyrene ribs, and a Kevlar trailing edge. Wing skin was Mylar plastic of approximately 0.3 mil (8 μm) thickness. The bottom portion of the fuselage and majority of the pilot seat were made of Kevlar as well. Horizontal and vertical stabilizers were "all-moving" control surfaces.
Airfoils
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 ...
had recently written the program
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 he ...
, which enables the design of
aerofoils and accurately predicts performance at a wide range of
Reynolds numbers
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 domin ...
.
The wing sections never existed on paper, either as lists of numbers or as drawings. The information came out of the design program onto disc, and this guided the cutter.
The spar of the MLE (Michelob Light Eagle) was three tubes aligned vertically.
This scheme was abandoned for the final Daedalus design where the more usual single tube was used. Construction of Light Eagle took 15,000 hours work by 18 members of
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
.
The airfoils which were used are: DAE11, DAE21, DAE31, and DAE51.
[Novascientia SA Blo]
Daedalus - Man's Greatest Flight
/ref>
Record-setting flight
The record-setting flight of ''Daedalus 88'' had as pilot Olympic cyclist 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&nbs ...
of 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 ...
.Olympics at Sports-Reference.com > Athletes > Kanellos Kanellopoulos
/ref> The flight began at the main airport of Iraklion, on Crete, with a horizontal launch under the pilot's own power, as governed by FAI rules. During the flight, the Daedalus flew primarily between 15 and 30 feet in altitude, and was accompanied by several escort vessels. The speed of the flight was helped by a tailwind, but this also made a head-on landing approach to the narrow beach hazardous, especially with crowds of spectators on the sand. The pilot maneuvered the aircraft to land more into the wind and parallel with the length of the beach. As the right wing extended over the black sand beach, the heat rising from the beach lifted that wing, turning the aircraft back towards the sea. This effect prevented the pilot from getting the whole aircraft onto the beach.
The flight ended in the water (7 meters from Perissa Beach on Santorini, according to the official record), when increasing gusty winds caused a torsional failure of the tail boom. Lacking control, the airplane then pitched nose-up, and another gust caused a failure of the main wing spar. The pilot swam to shore.
The pilot used a hydration drink during flight. This feat was equivalent to two back-to-back marathons.
Notes
References
* Dorsey, Gary (1990). ''The Fullness of Wings: The Making Of A New Daedalus''
FAI human powered flight world records
* Daedalus drawing
TIF
PDF
* Light Eagle (Daedalus prototype)
TIF
PDF
"Aurora Flies Large Solar-Powered Aircraft"
Further reading
*{{cite magazine, title=Triumph of ''Daedalus'', first=John S., last=Langford, magazine=National Geographic
''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 ...
, pp=190–199, volume=174, issue=2, date=August 1988, issn=0027-9358, oclc=643483454
Aircraft first flown in 1988
Human-powered aircraft
1980s United States experimental aircraft
Aurora Flight Sciences aircraft
High-wing aircraft
Single-engined tractor aircraft