Rise Up:Atlas Human-Powered Helicopter - AHS Sikorsky Prize Flight

[lovuian]

The world’s first human-powered helicopter by a Canadian engineer has won the Sikorsky Prize after performing a minute-long flight at an altitude of 3.3 meters – fueled only by the pilot’s pedaling of a modified bicycle.

The AHS Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition was established in 1980, in search for the first successful controlled flight of a human powered helicopter. The helicopter had to reach a height of three meters while hovering for at least one minute in a ten-square-meter area. The competition’s $250,000 prize had never previously been awarded, with numerous creative engineers trying and failing to meet the criteria.

http://rt.com/news/first-human-powered-helicopter-069/

[NYC_SKP]

1. Amazing! A human powered quad-copter!

I'm very impressed!

[lovuian]

2. it is pretty cool isn't it

lots of possibilities

[jtuck004]

3. But then there are the 10,000 pages of instructions for the kit.

Seriously, however, that's amazing. It would be a death trap outside in any wind at all, I think, but still a cool engineering feat.

[colorado_ufo]

5. Will IKEA be offering it for sale?

[Half-Century Man]

4. Every once in awhile....

..humans do something worthy of the title Intelligent Species.