Gossamer Condor, Pedal Powered
Designed by Dr. Paul MacCready and Dr. Peter LissamanConstructed of aluminum tubes, mylar plastic foil and stainless steel wire. Flown by Championship bicyclist and hang-glider enthusiast Bryan Allen. Gossamer Condor was the first really successful human powered airplane. Paul's team built 12 major prototypes and made over 400 test flights before reaching the final version that can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum.
Spars were 2in aluminum tubing with 0.024in wall thickness, reduced by chemical milling to 0.016in for the outer wing. Talk about optimization...
Contributors to this page: Thomas Yost (TDY), Patrick Poirier (PPR), Gerald Maroske (GUM) and Hendrik Maroske (HHM)