Alt Bike Culture - Anyone in history made a flying bicycle?

Has this ever happened and how did it work
Would it be possible with a glider frame (drivetrain would only add a few pounds), and therefore would you be able to launch off from ground, and not have to fly off a mountain.

Yes.

Search the web for 'gossamer albatross'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross

There is also a competition under way for the first human-powered helicopter. Someone is offering a cash prize, I think it's called the Sikorski Competition. As far as I know, nobody has been able to do it yet.

Here we go:
http://www.vtol.org/awards/hph.html

Search for Wilbur and Orville Wright.. They used to work in a bike shop, and used the idea to build the glider hehehe.

Gossamer Albratross...... I want one!!!!!
:D
Tim

There is also a competition under way for the first human-powered helicopter. Someone is offering a cash prize, I think it's called the Sikorski Competition. As far as I know, nobody has been able to do it yet.

Here we go:
http://www.vtol.org/awards/hph.html

Looks like Prof Patterson's human powered helicopter was able to hover for 8 seconds:

www.calpoly.edu/~wpatters/helo.html

i know this isn't helping anyone at all, but there used to be this video game in the mall where you actually sat down and pedalled this copter bike smashing balloons. it was probably my favorite video game of all time

i know this isn't helping anyone at all, but there used to be this video game in the mall where you actually sat down and pedalled this copter bike smashing balloons. it was probably my favorite video game of all time

rymodee are you in a band by the name of this bike is a pipe bomb? If so, you guys are one of my favorite bands!

no but if you hum a few bars i can probably wing it

Check out the Deadalus project.
www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1988/6/88.06.10.x.html#h

One of my favorites. Ridden before ultra training was common and before gatorade, and cheap/ light carbon fiber and titanium.

I'd do backflips if human powered air was the next extention of the sport.

just had a thought too...

I've seen ultralight and glider areas where pilots stay aloft for hours riding the thermals... i wonder what would happen if the same craft had a 0.25 HP prop turning? Not enough to support the plane or count as 'powered flight' but enought to extend the glide ratio... Might be a cheaper way into pedaled flight...

just had a thought too...

I've seen ultralight and glider areas where pilots stay aloft for hours riding the thermals... i wonder what would happen if the same craft had a 0.25 HP prop turning? Not enough to support the plane or count as 'powered flight' but enought to extend the glide ratio... Might be a cheaper way into pedaled flight...

At the speed a glider flies at, that prop would do much more to add drag than it would to keep the bird aloft.

Maybe a prop isn't the right solution then. Is there a more efficient way of moving air at low speeds?

Others have posted good links to human powered flying machines.

They are fascinating projects. Unfortunately, (fully) human powered flight is likely always to remain a marginal, demonstration activity. Flying is an extremely energetically demanding activity, and we humans just don't cut the mustard. We don't generate near enough power for our weight to make flying practical in earth's atmosphere. Note that even the trained atheletes in the links above could barely fly at all, and that on ideal days, in bizarre craft, and only a few yards off of the water. We just can't climb hundreds of feet in the air under our own power-- not, at least, with anything like materials available in the foreseeable future. And if we can't do that, we can't take advantage of thermals to stay aloft.

As far as jeff-o's suggestion to add pedal power to a glider of some kind, if one geared the prop right then it could add some thrust at the speeds a light glider flies. That sort of thing isn't pursued because the additional power is so small for the trouble involved. In one way, the fact that there is no motor in gliding is deceptive. Lift forces in gliding are huge; they dwarf those that could be produced by human power by a long way. Consider that a good thermal will lift a heavy, full body glider several hundred feet in a couple of minutes, whereas pedaling the hardest you could would be insufficient even to hold altitude with that glider. Without thermals you'd have to get back down to ground in about the same time however hard you pedaled. So, the addition of pedal power is such a marginal matter that people don't bother. (It's in the same category as pedal-assisted combustion-powered ground vehicles-- not necessary.)

There would also be changes required that would make pilots, and their insurers, antsy: the controls in the glider would have to be non-standard, because you couldn't have the rudder pedals on the floor anymore. Glider flying is already an active enough activity, and all that pedaling might seem like a distraction. And so on.
Hang gliding is the closest thing to bike-like flying: non-motorized, out in the air, quiet transport. You could even ride your mountain bike to the launch point, and pull your glider on a custom trailer.

Yeah didn't think about design with the glider, and didn't figure it would be anywhere near a thermals power, just slowing descent until the next thermal...

>They are fascinating projects. Unfortunately, (fully) human powered flight is likely always to remain a marginal, demonstration activity. Flying is an extremely energetically demanding activity, and we humans just don't cut the mustard. We don't generate near enough power for our weight to make flying practical in earth's atmosphere. Note that even the trained atheletes in the links above could barely fly at all, and that on ideal days, in bizarre craft, and only a few yards off of the water. We just can't climb hundreds of feet in the air under our own power-- not, at least, with anything like materials available in the foreseeable future. And if we can't do that, we can't take advantage of thermals to stay aloft. <<

Unfortunately true, for now.
Materials and designs will change this, techology will make things possible that have been impossible in ways we can't forsee.
That we can't do it now dosn't mean we can't find a way do do it tomorrow. Same argument said flight itself was impossible. That drastic innovation and invention is needed is obvious. But though the Wrights are credited with the first flight it was failed inventors since Davinchi that led them to the path.
Ask someone in 1935 'how' we'll get to the moon and they'd think your an idiot. Ask someone 100 years ago flight was impossible, human flight (even in bizzare craft etc) even more impossable.
By the way... most planes are what people would consider "bizzare craft" and the Wright brothers flights were on ideal days and only a few yards off land...

Heck in 10-20 years who knows what designs and materials will be available.
But without the crazy tinkerers bulding craft that fail, none will ever succeed.

Not flight, perhaps, but gliding.

In the late 70's, maybe early 80's, I saw a show featuring pseudo-celebs doing stunts. Marjoe Gortner rode a motorcycle, like a 125cc to 250cc yamaha, with a rogallo winf hang glider bolted to it. The tric was, during normal riding, the angle of attack of the rogallo wing was slightly negative, perhaps just 1 degree. If you built up speed on the bike, and the popped a wheelie, the thing would hop a hundred feet or so.

I think this would be possible on a bike, too.

Yeah there was a great vid of that guy crashing too.

The two founders of Rat Patrol Oz are also hangliding enthusiasts, so of course they've considered it, but they concluded it would surely result in their deaths. However, lots of people make them for Flugtag, with hilarious results that can be found on the website.

But though the Wrights are credited with the first flight it was failed inventors since Davinchi that led them to the path.

Curiously, it was when the Wrights rejected all that was previously known that they really started to make progress. Their key change was when they realized that all the available lift tables were horribly off and they decided that to get anywhere, they would have to make their own. So they started doing testing, using a modified bicycle and a home made wind tunnel. Being bicyclists, they also realized that control and balance were dynamic, not static. The key innovation was also bicycle based. From twisting a bicycle inner tube box, they realized how to warp the wings and achieve control so that they could turn. They had the machining skills and knowledge required to build the first planes because of the skilled people they had in their bicycle shop and factory.

You are right, that the Wright Brothers built on the shoulders of others. Leonardo can be included because of his sketches of a bicycle, but the shoulders that the Wright Brothers built on were on the shoulders of Von Drais, Michaux, MacMillan, Starley and other successful bicyclists.

The Mother of the Airplane is the Bicycle :D
http://www.first-to-fly.com/History%20Images/Wright%20St%20Clair%20bike.jpg

Check out the Deadalus project.
www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1988/6/88.06.10.x.html#h

I'd do backflips if human powered air was the next extention of the sport.

Yes, the Daedalus project was pretty inspiring. 76 miles in the air. Too bad things seemed to die after that.

It would be great if someone got the technology codified enough that teams could build pedal powered planes to spec and race them around pylons as a spectator sport. The "cheating" should improve the art and drive down prices. ;)

I believe this man is halfway there- all he needs are the biplane wings:
http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z172/stephenhazelton/MiscBikePhotos/Mesquite4.jpg

This has endlessly amused me.......

http://discordian.ca/glide-o-bike.jpg

http://www.trikebuggy.com/othertrikes/images/glide-o-bike.jpg

I wish I could find out more about this.....

http://bp1.blogger.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RkqRYrEDguI/AAAAAAAAAoA/oBT-o4hQI6I/s1600/1919%2BSept%2B23%2BJanesville%2BDaily%2BGazette%2B-%2BJanesville%2BWI%2Bpaleofuture%2Bflying%2Bbike.jpg

This has endlessly amused me.......

http://discordian.ca/glide-o-bike.jpg

http://www.trikebuggy.com/othertrikes/images/glide-o-bike.jpg

I wish I could find out more about this.....

http://bp1.blogger.com/_sGYULzoQCgA/RkqRYrEDguI/AAAAAAAAAoA/oBT-o4hQI6I/s1600/1919%2BSept%2B23%2BJanesville%2BDaily%2BGazette%2B-%2BJanesville%2BWI%2Bpaleofuture%2Bflying%2Bbike.jpg
man youd have to be really fast to catch lift or jump off a cliff

The best you could hope for would be lifting the front wheel off the ground like the kids in the picture.

How does that strut attached to the front wheel work? Or is that some artistic license?

The best you could hope for would be lifting the front wheel off the ground like the kids in the picture.

How does that strut attached to the front wheel work? Or is that some artistic license?

No helmet required ! :roflmao2:

The Glide-O-Bike did in fact exist, and was sold up until the 60s (in a more short-winged, streamlined version), I'm not sure if the company folded or Ralph Nader put them out of business. Seems like a recipe for death if you ask me, or at least broken ankles. But people regularly do more dangerous things like kite-surfing.

Apparently, someone won a Flugtag one year with one of these.

Here are mine:

http://www.rat-patrol.org/Archives/501.jpg

http://www.rat-patrol.org/Archives/502.jpg

Human Powered. :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Daedalus

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Daedalus-human-powered-aircraft.jpg/250px-Daedalus-human-powered-aircraft.jpg

Ahem:

http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:YogaFqDWG2PCKM:http://bp2.blogger.com/_LUd6pERZAP0/Re58B7-7MQI/AAAAAAAAAAc/o-mhwBlyz34/s200/ET%2BBicycle.jpg

The last video is the most descriptive

http://poliglide.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=16&chapter=0

Does this count?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbC8crk2msY

Walter MItty Model

http://gizmodo.com/391955/google-earth-flying-bicycle-doesnt-include-basket-et

No Wings (caution - language/stupidity)

http://www.wimp.com/flyingbike/

don't know if anyone is still reading this thread...
A 15 year old by the name of cromwell dixon built a 'sky-cycle' in 1907. it was a silk hydrogen blimp. he later died flying a powered, fixed wing aircraft a few days after becoming the first pilot to fly over the continental divide just outside of Helena, Montana. Then a french fellow, stephan rousson tried to cross the channel in 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/gallery/2008/sep/29/france?fb=native . then university of nottingham started a project that seems to have been abandoned: http://road.cc/content/news/3091-pedal-powered-airship-takes-skies-above-nottingham

could this be done DIY?

The last video is the most descriptive
???



No Wings (caution - language/stupidity)

http://www.wimp.com/flyingbike/
I cannot find the above video?

This one is pretty funny though-
http://www.dump.com/2011/10/14/no-one-believed-her-video/

Some people just have BALLS.

I've seen the Glide-O-Bike ads elsewhere, but apparently all the company ever sold was plans.... ?

-------

With the proliferation of parafoil kites used for windsurfing, it wouldn't be too difficult or expensive to obtain the necessary ingredients to make yourself famous.... -or be critically injured trying, anyway.
http://www.windpowersports.com/kites/stunt/parafoil.html

don't know if anyone is still reading this thread...
A 15 year old by the name of cromwell dixon built a 'sky-cycle' in 1907. it was a silk hydrogen blimp. he later died flying a powered, fixed wing aircraft a few days after becoming the first pilot to fly over the continental divide just outside of Helena, Montana. Then a french fellow, stephan rousson tried to cross the channel in 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/gallery/2008/sep/29/france?fb=native . then university of nottingham started a project that seems to have been abandoned: http://road.cc/content/news/3091-pedal-powered-airship-takes-skies-above-nottingham

could this be done DIY?'

Depends on your skill set. The comedian Gallagher had one built by Bill Watson in the 1980s.

http://airshipworld.blogspot.com/2007/08/white-dwarf-pedal-powered-personal.html

http://i.treehugger.com/whitedwarf.jpg

Recently Students at University of Maryland made a human powered helicopter (http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/diy-flying/a-human-powered-helicopter-takes-flight).

http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/pedalpoweredheli.jpg

Probably what one would need for sustained flight with relative ease would be a combination glider, a large enough hot air balloon to give some lift, and a pedaled powered prop to give it direction. Problem with that is the size of the balloon needs to be small enough so the prop could dictate speed and direction rather then the balloon doing that. Maybe a long thin balloon vs a big fat one would decrease the ability of currents to drag the balloon around?

Or maybe combine the effects of solar powered prop like those used on the Solar Challenger with a pedal power to add more power, kind of like the little cheater motor you can put on a bicycle seat tube to provide 150 watts of power to the crank, except the solar would have more power and longer constant output. This way you could make such a craft lighter then the original due to needing smaller motors and making up the difference in lost of power with pedal power.

I use to fly ultralights in the Mojave desert and on hot days you would head towards a dry lake bed because of the whitish sand on the beds a thermal would rise off those areas and give you very noticeable and strong lift, so I would circle those areas like a buzzard allowing the heat to raise my altitude because the thermal would get you up a lot higher and a lot faster then just using the engine to power myself up, plus save a lot of fuel.

I would like to know is why didn't the Gossamer Albatross idea become a hobby of sorts to people around the world? No one has ever bothered to repeat the success of this concept. I would of thought once someone had success others would have been jumping on the bandwagon to build their own and fly it. As far as I know I never heard anyone doing that.

How about a lifting body blimp? Maybe in combination with glider wing(s). With an electric drivetrain and a small to moderate battery to allow an enormous gear range and to allow low steady output from the pilot to be used as short high energy burst for steering.

Musculair 2 (http://www.deutsches-museum.de/en/flugwerft/collections/propeller-driven-aircrafts/musculair-2/), built by Günther Rochelt, was the fastest and most maneuverable HPA and was able to fly out of ground effect. It isn't true that you need to be able to fly hundreds of feet into the air to take advantage of thermals, and with wing loadings similar to hang gliders, it doesn't take much for something like the Musculair. It is possible to build a practical pedal powered airplane that can also soar like a hang glider. Something like http://www.ruppert-composite.ch/english/index.html with a bicycle drivetrain.

I had a friend that was into microlights when I lived in Lancaster CA, and those look similar to the Ruppert except you sat in a canopy with a windscreen kind of like a motorcycle or scooter with wings. http://www.airborne.com.au/pages/ml_xt912-sst.php Their faster then ultralights but speed is suppose to be limited to about 55 knots on both ultra and micro due to laws but must go faster, but you can fly up to 450 miles instead of about 50 miles in an ultralight. Biggest problem with these aircraft is that their not suppose to fly over populated areas (thus why I lived in the desert) and only allowed to fly in daylight. Personally I think the law about flying over populated areas is extremely ignorant on the part of the government. The government is scared that these things will crash into houses; first off, they rarely crash because they are safe and their glide ratio is extremely long compared to an airplane; second, if one was to crash into a house the airplane and the pilot would be destroyed but the house would be virtually unharmed or at least very minimal damage, but if an airplane hit a house it could destroy the house! So I find that part of the law insane. I also can't understand the 5 gallon fuel limit law either, but most people that I knew, including myself, had larger tanks due to having higher performance engines then a typical ultralight. But the cool thing about flying ultralights is you don't need any special license to fly one...but you should obviously have flight training and get a ultralights pilot's certification but it's not required.

Their actually easy to fly, but you have to keep a keen eye open for wind issues and make sure you fly only on calm days, wind is a major flight difficulty for these little aircraft. Living in the Mojave desert area winds would come up pretty strong right around 2pm almost like clock work, so we had to fly in the morning hours, but sometimes the wind came up a lot sooner then expected; I remember once making 7 low level passes on my landing strip watching the wind sock and feeling the aircraft for stability before I could put it down, and that time I had to put down fast because I may have had only 10 seconds of calm.

The problem is that gravity is too high for a human to realistically be able to power an aircraft. I read a science-fiction book by Arthur Clarke, which makes a reference to 'sky cycling' as an event in the Lunar olympics. Presumably there, the 1/6th gravity combined with enclosed structures at terrestrial air pressure would make human-powered flight relatively easy. The best aerodynamicists in the solar system are apparently on Mars 'If you can fly in that atmosphere, you can fly anywhere'

The problem is that gravity is too high for a human to realistically be able to power an aircraft. I read a science-fiction book by Arthur Clarke, which makes a reference to 'sky cycling' as an event in the Lunar olympics. Presumably there, the 1/6th gravity combined with enclosed structures at terrestrial air pressure would make human-powered flight relatively easy. The best aerodynamicists in the solar system are apparently on Mars 'If you can fly in that atmosphere, you can fly anywhere'

but humans already have powered flying bikes here on earth, did you not see the above posts?

What rekmeyata said. Bryan Allen pedaled Paul B. MacCready's Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel on June 12, 1979.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ketusOFabb4

This might interest some:

Celebrating 50 years of human-powered flight.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/09/50-years-human-powered-flight

This might interest some:

Celebrating 50 years of human-powered flight.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/09/50-years-human-powered-flight

Thanks.

That was interesting. I had read of those flights, but never seen any video of them.

but humans already have powered flying bikes here on earth, did you not see the above posts?

What has been constructed so far is not practical for ordinary use.
The Gossamer Albatross was ~100 foot wingspan, a few pieces of carbon fiber but mostly styrofoam and mylar. It would be damaged in even the slightest breezes or hard landings.

Kid flies past the 18km radius, and more like 22km overall distance when you straighten out his jagged path of travel...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1638710914506519616

What has been constructed so far is not practical for ordinary use.
The Gossamer Albatross was ~100 foot wingspan, a few pieces of carbon fiber but mostly styrofoam and mylar. It would be damaged in even the slightest breezes or hard landings.

Trust me, you don't want strong winds or hard landings on an ultralight either!!

Kid flies past the 18km radius, and more like 22km overall distance when you straighten out his jagged path of travel...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1638710914506519616

That was cool, that poor kid was exhausted after that 14 mile trip. Too bad they didn't rig up some sort of lightweight battery backup to power the aircraft till it got to land for and safe landing, or at least allow some distance on electric, even 5 more klicks would had allowed him to rest a bit for before resuming pedaling to land it. But doing some sort of electrical power would had probably voided the contest. Or even if they had a tether dangling off the craft then a boater could grab it and tow it to safety instead of crashing it in the lake.

What has been constructed so far is not practical for ordinary use.

What ordinary use (besides recreation) do you have in mind? Delivering the mail, crop dusting, pulling advertising signs across the skies, aerial mapping, acting as a shuttle between urban airports, launching spaceship one?

What ordinary use (besides recreation) do you have in mind? Delivering the mail, crop dusting, pulling advertising signs across the skies, aerial mapping, acting as a shuttle between urban airports, launching spaceship one?

I agree, the aircraft isn't for ordinary use, it's a hobby. I use to fly ultralights, there was no ordinary use for it, it was just for fun. Some of you play computer games, what's the ordinary use for doing such a thing? NOTHING! It's just for fun. And if I had the cash I would try building one of those aircraft myself just for fun.

Seems like the combination of dirigible/fixed wing would be pretty cool. Until a big gust of wind came along...