lisitsa

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.

classic1

Yes.

Search the web for 'gossamer albatross'

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

same time

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:
https://www.vtol.org/awards/hph.html

aadhils

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

harlantk

Gossamer Albratross...... I want one!!!!!

Tim

meb

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

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

rymodee

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

alphredrock

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!

rymodee

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

biodiesel

Check out the Deadalus project.
https://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum...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.

biodiesel

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...

juicemouse

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

jeff-o

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

Merriwether

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.

biodiesel

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.

The Speaker Guy

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.

biodiesel

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

Johnny Payphone

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.

Artkansas 

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

Artkansas 

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.

StephenH

I believe this man is halfway there- all he needs are the biplane wings:

Sianelle 

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



https://www.trikebuggy.com/othertrike...ide-o-bike.jpg

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

Sledbikes

man youd have to be really fast to catch lift or jump off a cliff

StephenH

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?

fordfasterr

No helmet required !