Gamera II Team Smashes Previous Best Human-Powered Helicopter Flight Time 118
Zothecula writes "For over 30 years, the $250,000 for the American Helicopter Society's Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition prize has looked decidedly secure, but Gamera II has changed all that. Last week, Clark School of Engineering team pilots came close to breaking one of the competition's major milestones. Ph.D. candidate from Kyle Gluesenkamp from the School's mechanical engineering department, hand-cranking and pedaling like his life depended on it, managed to keep the huge quad-rotor craft aloft for 50 seconds, an impressive new world record that's currently awaiting validation by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA)." We previously covered their attempt to break the record last May.
University of Maryland (Score:5, Informative)
Although the summary doesn't state it, the Clark School of Engineering is part of the University of Maryland at College Park.
Re:Impressive engineering feat (Score:5, Informative)
That would basically render the whole exercise pointless, because any energy-storage device on-board the craft could be powered by any form of energy. For instance, if you could build a giant 8-seat helicopter and power it with electric batteries, then even a human could "power" it by using an exercise bike to charge the batteries, very slowly, over the course of days or months. I think the whole idea is to make a craft that's so light that a human can power it directly; by storing energy, you can make the craft as big and heavy as you want.
Re:Impressive engineering feat (Score:5, Informative)
not really practical application (Score:4, Informative)
They're taking massive advantage of ground effect, and are using the distributed rotors to magnify the effect more than a single rotor could. That's probably the primary reason they did so well.
The entire thing seems to be an exercise in futility. Helicopters aren't very efficient. I'd be much more interested in seeing more of the human-powered-glider competitions. Those guys can keep them up in the air quite a lot longer.