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Ahuman-powered aircraft (HPA) is anaircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known ashuman-powered transport.
As its name suggests, HPAs have the pilot not only steer, but also power the aircraft with a system similar to abicycle. A pair of pedals, moved by the pilot's feet, is connected to a propeller, or in the case of earlier prototypes, anornithopter mechanism, which powers the aircraft.
Often, a hybrid system is used, where sometimes the pedals would charge a battery,[1] which would, at the push of a button, power anelectric motor that is connected to the propeller.
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.
Early attempts at human-powered flight were unsuccessful because of the difficulty of achieving the highpower-to-weight ratio. Prototypes often usedornithopter principles which were not only too heavy to meet this requirement but aerodynamically unsatisfactory.
In 1904, Scientific American published an article and a photograph of a bicycle plane built by Steward Winslow ofRiparia,Washington.[2] He attempted to fly his plane on 30 July 1904, but one of the wheels failed.[3]
An early human-powered aircraft was theGerhardt Cycleplane, developed by W. Frederick Gerhardt atMcCook Field inDayton, Ohio in 1923. Its only human-powered takeoff was a short hop of 6 metres (20 ft) with the craft rising 60 centimetres (2 ft).[4]
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In 1934,Engelbert Zaschka from Germany completed a large human-powered aircraft, theZaschka Human-Power Aircraft. On 11 July 1934, the Zaschka-HPA flew about 20 metres (70 ft) on theBerlin Tempelhof Airport; the HPA took off withoutassisted takeoff.[5][6]
A craft calledHV-1 Mufli [de] (Muskelkraft-Flugzeug) built by Helmut Hässler andFranz Villinger [de] first flew on 30 August 1935: a distance of 235 metres (771 ft) atHalle an der Saale. A total of 120 flights were made, the longest being 712 metres (2,336 ft) in 1937. However, it was launched using atensioned cable and so was not strictly human-powered.[7]
In March 1937, a team ofEnea Bossi (designer), Vittorio Bonomi (builder), and Emilio Casco (pilot) met a challenge by theItalian government for a flight of 1 kilometre (3,300 ft) using theirPedaliante. The aircraft apparently flew short distances fully under human power, but the distances were not significant enough to win the competition's prize. Furthermore, there has been much dispute whether it ever took off under the pedal-power of the pilot alone, in particular because there is no record of official observation of it having done so.[8] Some arguments for and against the validity of Bossi's claim to have done so are presented byKeith Sherwin (1976).[9] At the time the fully human-powered flights were deemed to be a result of the pilot's significant strength and endurance; and ultimately not attainable by a typical human. As with theHV-1 Mufli, additional attempts were therefore made using a catapult system. By being catapulted to a height of 9 metres (30 ft), the aircraft met the distance requirement of one kilometre but was declined the prize due to the launch method.[10][11][12]
The first officially authenticated take-off and landing of a human-powered aircraft (one capable of powered take-offs, unlike aglider) was made on 9 November 1961 byDerek Piggott inSouthampton University's Man Powered Aircraft (SUMPAC) atLasham Airfield.[13][14]The best flight out of 40 attempts was 650 metres (2,100 ft).[15] The SUMPAC was substantially rebuilt byImperial College with a new transmission system but was damaged beyond repair in November 1965.
TheHatfield Puffin first flew on 16 November 1961, one week after SUMPAC. The Hatfield Man Powered Aircraft Club was formed of employees ofde Havilland Aircraft Company and had access to company support. Eventually its best distance was 908 metres (2,980 ft).[16]John Wimpenny said he was very pleased with the performance of the Puffin, which handled beautifully during the flight.[17] His record stood for 10 years.
Puffin 2 was a new fuselage and wing around the transmission recovered from the original Puffin. It flew on 27 August 1965 and made several flights over 800 metres (2,600 ft), including a climb to 5.2 metres (17 ft). After Puffin 2 was damaged, it was handed over to Liverpool University who used it to build theLiverpuffin.
After this date several less successful aircraft flew, until 1972 when the Woodford Essex Aircraft Group'sJupiter, designed and built by Chris Roper, piloted by John Potter flew 1,070 metres (3,510 ft) and 1,239 metres (4,065 ft) in June 1972. Due to Roper's ill health, the project was later continued atRAF Halton – Potter was a servingRoyal Air Force (RAF) officer at the time.[18]
TheRoyal Aeronautical Society's "Man Powered Aircraft Group" was formed in 1959 by the members of the Man Powered Group of theCollege of Aeronautics atCranfield 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.[citation needed])
Under the auspices of the Society[citation needed], in 1959 the industrialistHenry Kremer offered the firstKremer 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.[19]
In 1973, Kremer increased his prize money tenfold to £50,000. At that time, the human-powered aircraft had flown only in straight (or nearly straight) line courses, and no-one had yet even attempted his more challenging figure-eight course, which required a fully controllable aircraft. He also opened the competition to all nationalities; previously it was restricted to British entries only.
On 23 August 1977, theGossamer Condor 2 flew the first figure-eight, a distance of 2.172 km winning the first Kremer prize. It was built byDr Paul B. MacCready and piloted by amateur cyclist and hang-glider pilotBryan Allen. Although slow, cruising at only 18 km/h (11 mph), it achieved that speed with only 260 W (0.35 hp).[20]
The second Kremer prize of £100,000 was won on June 12, 1979, again by Paul MacCready, whenBryan Allen flew MacCready'sGossamer Albatross fromEngland toFrance: a straight distance of 35.82 km (22.26 mi) in 2 hours, 49 minutes.[citation needed]
A week after the cross-channel flight of Gossamer Albatross, which used a propeller designed by the MIT team,[21] a student-led team at theMassachusetts Institute of Technology achieved first flight on theirChrysalis aircraft,[22] which demonstrated full controllability and was flown by 44 different pilots,[21] including female pilots.
On 11 May 1984, the third Kremer prize of £20,000 for speed went to the MIT design team for flying theirMonarch-B[23] craft on a triangular 1.5 km (0.93 mi) course in under three minutes (for an average speed of 32 km/h or 20 mph): pilot Frank Scarabino. Further prizes of £5,000 are awarded to each subsequent entrant improving the speed by at least five percent.
Over the next four years, the MIT group continued to develop their designs, with the Monarch and Monarch-B aircraft succeeded by three follow-on designs, the Light Eagle and twoMIT Daedalus aircraft, the Daedalus-87 and Daedalus-88. The current distance record recognised by theFAI was achieved on 23 April 1988 fromIraklion onCrete toSantorini in theMIT Daedalus 88 piloted byKanellos Kanellopoulos: a straight distance of 115.11 km (71.53 mi).[24]
The first human-powered passenger flight occurred on 1 October 1984 when Holger Rochelt carried his sister Katrin inMusculair 1.
Machines have been built and flown in Japan, Germany, Greece, France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Austria, Canada, Singapore, the United States, and the United Kingdom, with their total number approaching a hundred.
With further funds from the late Henry Kremer, theRoyal Aeronautical Society announced four new prizes:[25]
Attempts have been made to claim the £100,000 Kremer Sport prize. Students fromVirginia Polytechnic Institute designed an aircraft as part of their AE4065/6 class.[citation needed] A team from thePennsylvania State University designed thePSU Zephyrus.[citation needed] A team of aerospace engineering students from theUniversity of Southampton designed and constructed the SUHPA.[26]
In 2012, theRoyal Aeronautical Society brought into being theIcarus Cup[27] for human powered flying. The first cup was won byAirglow, designed by John and Mark McIntyre. The Icarus Cup is different from the Kremer Prize in that it does not aim to simply break speed and distance records, but make human powered flying into a popular sport. Therefore, the competition includes challenges such as a slalom course, an unaided starting task and a landing accuracy test. The Icarus Cup is held annually atLasham Airfield, Great Britain, the site of the first human-powered flight.
In 2017, Yuta Watanabe, the pilot of Birdman House Iga, completed a 40 km (25 mi) round-trip flight.In 2019 he succeeded with a 60 km (37 mi) flight during the Japan International Birdman event aboveLake Biwa.[28]
Inventors have built human-poweredairships, among them theSnoopy in 1979 and theWhite Dwarf in 1984. By gaininglift throughbuoyancy instead of air flowing past anairfoil, much less effort is required to power the aircraft.[29][30][31][32]
On August 2, 2010, Todd Reichert of the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies piloted a human-poweredornithopter namedSnowbird. The aircraft with 32-metre (105 ft) wingspan and mass of 42 kilograms (93 lb) was constructed fromcarbon fibre, balsa, and foam. The pilot sat in a small cockpit suspended below the wings and pumped a bar with his feet to operate a system of wires that flapped the wings up and down. Towed by a car until airborne, it then sustained flight for almost 20 seconds. It flew 145 metres (476 ft) with an average speed of 25.6 km/h (15.9 mph).[33] Similar tow-launched flights were made in the past, but improved data collection verified that the ornithopter was capable of self-powered flight once aloft.[34][35][36]
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