What was the name of the human powered aircraft which crossed the Channel in 1979?
Human-powered transport to the takeoff method. The first officially authenticated regularly feasible take-off and landing of a human-powered aircraft (one capable of powered takeoffs, unlike a glider) was made on 9 November 1961 by Derek Piggott in Southampton University's Man Powered Aircraft (SUMPAC). Perhaps the best-known human-powered plane is the Gossamer Albatross, which flew across the English Channel in 1979. The current distance and duration record recognised by the FAI, a straight distance of in 3 hours and 54 minutes, was achieved on 23 April 1988 from Heraklion on Crete to Santorini in a MIT Daedalus 88 piloted by Kanellos Kanellopoulos. The
History of human-powered aircraft History of human-powered aircraft The history of human-powered aircraft (HPA) started in the early twentieth century. HPAs are aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered vehicles. 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. 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. An early human-powered aircraft was the Gerhardt Cycleplane,