The AeroVelo Atlas is a

human-powered helicopter A human-powered helicopter (HPH) is a helicopter powered solely by one or more humans carried on board. As in other human-powered aircraft, the power is usually generated by pedalling. It remains a considerable engineering challenge to obtain bo ...

(HPH) that was built for AHS International's

Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition The Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition was established in 1980 by the American Helicopter Society (AHS) International. The award, the AHS Sikorsky Prize, was given for the first human powered helicopter (HPH) to meet a set of e ...

. On 13 June 2013, it became the first aircraft to achieve the goals of the competition and thus won the prize.

Design and development

AeroVelo, a team of students and graduates of the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

, began flight testing its Atlas quad rotor HPH on 28 August 2012. The core team of AeroVelo is the same group that created

Snowbird Snowbird is a common name for the dark-eyed junco (''Junco hyemalis''). Snowbird may also refer to: Places *Snowbird, Utah, an unincorporated area and associated ski resort *Snowbird Lake, a lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada *Snowbird ...

, the first successful human-powered

ornithopter An ornithopter (from Greek ''ornis, ornith-'' "bird" and ''pteron'' "wing") is an aircraft that flies by flapping its wings. Designers sought to imitate the flapping-wing flight of birds, bats, and insects. Though machines may differ in form, ...

. The Atlas is the largest HPH ever flown, and has a tip-to-tip rotor span of , second only to the Russian

Mil V-12 The Mil V-12 (NATO reporting name: Homer), given the project number ''Izdeliye 65'' ("Item 65"), is the largest helicopter ever built. The designation "Mi-12" would have been the name for the production helicopter and was not applied to the V-12 ...

. The peak power of was generated only during the first few seconds to climb to the required altitude. By the end of the flight, power had reduced to . Todd Reichert, the pilot and a racing cyclist, had specifically trained for such a power profile. The design specifically took advantage of the ground effect possible by the altitude required to win the prize. Control was created by leaning the bike, which flexed the entire

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

frame, tilting the

rotor Rotor may refer to: Science and technology Engineering * Rotor (electric), the non-stationary part of an alternator or electric motor, operating with a stationary element so called the stator *Helicopter rotor, the rotary wing(s) of a rotorcraft ...

axes.

Operational history

The AeroVelo Atlas HPH made its first flight on 28 August 2012. On 13 June 2013, with a flight commencing at 12:43PM EDT, the team managed to keep Atlas in the air for 64.11 seconds, reach a peak altitude of and drift no more than from the starting point. Data from that flight was submitted to AHS International. After this was reviewed by its panel of vertical flight technical experts, AHS International announced that the flight had met the requirements of the competition and that AeroVelo had officially won the $250,000 prize on 11 July 2013. A section was donated to the

New England Air Museum The New England Air Museum (NEAM) is an American aerospace museum located adjacent to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut. The museum consists of three display hangars with additional storage and restoration hangars. Its co ...

in 2017.

Specifications

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.aerovelo.com/ Human-powered aircraft Quadrotors

Atlas An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of maps of Earth or of a region of Earth. Atlases have traditionally been bound into book form, but today many atlases are in multimedia formats. In addition to presenting geogra ...

2010s Canadian experimental aircraft Aircraft first flown in 2012 University of Toronto Quadcopters

Design and development

Operational history

Specifications

See also

References

External links