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Gossamer Condor
	The Gossamer Condor at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Role	experimental aircraft
National origin	United States
Manufacturer	AeroVironment
First flight	1977
Status	museum piece
Number built	1

The Gossamer Condor was the first human-powered aircraft capable of controlled and sustained flight, able to win the Kremer prize.

[edit] Design and development

The Kremer prize had been set up in 1959 by Henry Kremer, a British industrialist, and offered 50,000 pounds ($85,000) in prize money to the first group that could fly a human-powered aircraft over a figure-eight course covering a total of a mile (1.6 kilometers). The course also included a ten-foot pole that the aircraft had to fly over at the start and end. Early attempts to build human-powered aircraft had focused on wooden designs, which proved too heavy. Very early attempts – notably the HV-1 Mufli ^(de) and Pedaliante – used catapult launches.^[1]

In 1961, the Hatfield Puffin, which took off under human power, managed a maximum flight of 908 metres but it was difficult to turn. The Jupiter managed 1,239 m in June 1972. The Nihon Stork B achieved over 2 kilomters in 1976^[2]

In the early 1970s, Dr Paul B. MacCready and Dr Peter B. S. Lissaman, both of AeroVironment Inc., took a fresh look at the challenge and came up with an unorthodox aircraft, the Gossamer Condor. He took his inspiration from hang gliders, increasing wing area so that the drag of the wire bracing needed would be reduced.^[3] The Gossamer Condor is built around a large wing with a gondola for the pilot underneath and a canard control surface on a fuselage extension in front, and is mostly built of lightweight plastics with aluminium spars.^[4]

The aircraft, piloted by amateur cyclist and hang-glider pilot Bryan Allen, won the first Kremer prize on August 23, 1977 by completing a figure-eight course specified by the Royal Aeronautical Society, at Minter Field in Shafter, California. It was capable of taking off under human power.

The aircraft is preserved at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The success led Paul MacCready and AeroVironment to carry on with experimental aircraft:

the Gossamer Albatross, which crossed the English Channel,

the Solar Challenger, a solar electric-powered version that also made an English Channel crossing,

NASA's Pathfinder/Helios series of unmanned solar-powered aircraft.^[4]

[edit] Specifications

This aircraft article is missing some (or all) of its specifications. If you have a source, you can help Wikipedia by adding them.

Wingspan: 29.25m (96 ft)

Length: 9.14 m (30 ft)

Height: 5.49 m (18 ft)

Weight: 31.75 kg (70 lb.)

[edit] See also

The Flight of the Gossamer Condor, a 1979 short documentary film

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

Morton Grosser. Gossamer Odyssey: The Triumph of Human-Powered Flight. MBI Press, 2004; Dover Publications, Inc., 1991; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1981
Morton Grosser. On Gossamer Wings. York Custom Graphics, 1982
Gosnell, Mariana. Zero Three Bravo. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1993. (see chapter entitled Shafter)

[edit] External links

This article on an aircraft of the 1970s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[0] Grosser, Morton (1981). Gossamer Odyssey: The Triumph of Human-Powered Flight. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-7603-2051-9. http://books.google.com/books?id=OsRAxz0D-GUC&pg=RA1-PA192&dq=intitle:Gossamer+intitle:Odyssey+pilot+endurance&lr=&as_brr=0&ei=xIYgSdbYEITOlQTXk5WnBQ#PPA8,M1.

[1] ttp://www.raes.org.uk/cmspage.asp?cmsitemid=SG_hum_pow_history

[2] ttp://www.humanpoweredflying.propdesigner.co.uk/html/the_gossamers_and_other_planes.html

[vector1-3] "SOLAR-POWERED UAVS: HALSOL & SOLAR HAPP", The Prehistory Of Endurance UAVs, by Greg Goebel, in the Public Domain

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