IPFS News Link • Inventions
Up in the air with a human-powered helicopter
• http://news.yahoo.com, By Claudine ZapStudents at University of Maryland are using pedal power to break a human-powered helicopter record (but hopefully to break nothing else).
As surfaced by the blog Popsci, a video shows freshman Henry Enerson taking the vehicle up in the air—with nothing more than foot pedals keeping the thing above the ground—hovering eight feet up, and then making a smooth descent. The operation smashed previous records of human-powered flight. Think of these brave students as modern-day Wright brothers (and sisters).
As noted on the video description by the students who make up Team Gamera, "Henry smoothly pedaled Gamera up to just over 8 feet (2.5 meters) altitude and had a controlled descent for a flight time of about 25 seconds. This is not an 'official' record but is certainly the highest a human powered helicopter has ever reached."