The Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition was established in 1980 by the American Helicopter Society (AHS) International. The award, the AHS Sikorsky Prize, was given for the first human powered helicopter (HPH) to meet a set of extremely challenging flight requirements. In summary, the requirements to win the AHS Sikorsky Prize included a flight duration of 60 seconds and reaching an altitude of 3 meters (9.8 ft), with the center point of the aircraft hovering over a 10-by-10 meter (32.8-by-32.8 ft) square.
In 2013, 33 years after the competition was established, the award was officially declared won when AeroVelo's Atlas human-powered helicopter conducted a flight that met all the requirements of the AHS International competition, and received the $250,000 prize.
In the history of the prize, dozens of teams have designed and built human-powered helicopters, although only five of them made it airborne. Only five! That's how hard this is.
Watch the amazing contraption which won the competition here. What an engineering achievement!
I love to see this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteThat thing is simply jaw dropping. An amazing feat of engineering indeed.
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