"Imagine the impossible and do it." Dr. Paul MacCready Dies In His Sleep August 28, 2007

Aviation has lost one of it's bright shining geniuses whose innovative
work revolutionized and expanded the boundaries of aviation. He is
credited with imploring, ""Imagine the impossible and do it."

A daring experimental physicist, MacCready was one of the few
scientists to fly a free balloon into thunderclouds in a stunningly
dangerous research project in New Mexico.

We airmen are all poorer for his loss.

http://www.avweb.com/eletter/archive...ll.html#196035
Dr. Paul MacCready, whose Gossamer Albatross I became the first
aircraft to fly across the English Channel under human power alone in
1979, died Aug. 28. MacCready was also the founder of AeroVironment,
which developed groundbreaking alternative energy technology ... .



AeroVironment has established an online book of condolences and
biography of Dr. MacCready at www.avinc.com/maccready.

From the AeroVironment's website:
http://www.avinc.com/Dr.MacCready_bio.asp
"Paul MacCready was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1925. During
his adolescence he was a serious model airplane enthusiast who set
many records for experimental craft. At age 16, he soloed in powered
planes. In World War II, he flew in the U.S. Navy flight training
program.

In 1943 MacCready graduated from Hopkins School in New Haven. In 1947
he received his Bachelor of Science in physics from Yale University
(Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi). His interest in flight grew to include
gliders. He won the 1948, 1949 and 1953 U.S. National Soaring
Championships, pioneered high-altitude wave soaring in the United
States, and in 1947 became the first American in 14 years to establish
an international soaring record. He represented the United States at
contests in Europe four times, becoming International Champion in
France in 1956, the first American to achieve this goal."

From 1946 through 1956, MacCready worked on sailplane development,
soaring techniques, meteorology, and invented the Speed Ring Airspeed
Selector that is used by glider pilots worldwide to select the optimum
flight speed between thermals (now commonly called the “MacCready
Speed”). Concurrently, he earned a master's degree in physics in 1948
and a Ph.D. in aeronautics in 1952 from the California Institute of
Technology. He founded Meteorology Research Inc., which became a
leading firm in weather modification and atmospheric science research.
He pioneered the use of small, instrumented aircraft to study storm
interiors and personally performed many of the piloting duties, some
of the more harrowing examples of which he would recount in later
years.

In 1971, MacCready founded AeroVironment, Inc., a diversified company
headquartered in Monrovia, California. The company is a leader in
unmanned aircraft systems and efficient electric energy systems. He
was Chairman of the Board of AeroVironment and was an active mentor to
the engineering staff.

MacCready became internationally known in 1977 as the "father of
human-powered flight" when his Gossamer Condor made the first
sustained, controlled flight by a heavier-than-air craft powered
solely by its pilot's muscles. For the feat he received the $95,000
Henry Kremer Prize established in 1959. Two years later, his team
created the Gossamer Albatross, another 70-pound craft with a 96 foot
wingspan that, with DuPont sponsorship, achieved the first known
human-powered flight across the English Channel. That flight, made by
"pilot-engine" Bryan Allen, lasted nearly three hours. The
accomplishment won MacCready the new Kremer prize of $213,000, at the
time the largest cash prize in aviation history.

With sponsorship from DuPont, the AeroVironment team led by MacCready
subsequently developed two more aircraft, this time powered by the
sun. In 1980, the Gossamer Penguin made the first climbing flight
powered solely by sunbeams. In 1981, the rugged Solar Challenger was
piloted 163 miles from Paris, France to England, at an altitude of
11,000 feet. These solar-powered aircraft were built and flown to draw
world attention to photovoltaic cells as a renewable and non-polluting
energy source for home and industry, and to demonstrate the use of
DuPont's advanced materials for lightweight structures.

Some years later, first with the U.S. Department of Defense and then
with NASA support, MacCready and AeroVironment transitioned Solar
Challenger technology into a series of unmanned, solar-powered
stratospheric aircraft. The 100 foot wingspan Pathfinder achieved a
peak altitude of 71,500 feet in 1997. The 120 foot wingspan Pathfinder
Plus climbed over 80,000 feet in 1998. In August 2001 the giant, 247
foot wingspan Helios reached 96,863 feet, over 2 miles higher than any
plane had ever sustained level flight.

The AeroVironment team's first land vehicle was the GM Sunraycer, with
the company providing project management, systems engineering,
aerodynamics and structural design, power electronics development, as
well as construction and testing for General Motors and Hughes
Aircraft. In November 1987, this solar-powered car won the 1,867 mile
race across Australia, averaging 41.6 mph (50 percent faster than the
second place vehicle in the field of 24 contestants). The goal of the
Sunraycer, in addition to winning the race, was to advance
transportation technology that makes fewer demands on the earth's
resources and environment, and to inspire students to become
engineers. In January 1990, the GM Impact was introduced, a
battery-powered sports car with snappy "0 to 60 mph in 8 seconds"
performance. GM later turned the Impact into the production vehicle EV
1. In 1985 the AeroVironment team had proposed to GM the initial
concept for the Impact. In 1988-89 GM supported AeroVironment to
handle program management, systems engineering, design of the
electrical and mechanical elements, and build the vehicle, integrating
the participation of a dozen GM divisions. This pioneering car became
a catalyst for the initial California Zero Emission Vehicle Mandate
and the related global developments of battery-powered and
alternatively-fueled vehicles.

The unique vehicles produced by MacCready's teams have received
international attention through exhibits, books, television
documentaries, and innumerable articles and cover stories in magazines
and newspapers. MacCready and AeroVironment have become symbols for
creativity. The Gossamer Condor, Gossamer Albatross, Solar Challenger,
QN, Sunraycer, and Pathfinder Plus were all acquired by the
Smithsonian. The Gossamer Condor is on permanent display at the
Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. A film
about it, "The Flight of the Gossamer Condor", won the Academy Award
for Best Documentary - Short Subject in 1978. The Gossamer Albatross
is displayed in the NASM Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles. The Sunraycer is
displayed at the Smithsonian American History Museum, and the
Pathfinder Plus is in the NASM Udvar-Hazy Center.

MacCready's achievements have brought him many honors, the including
the following:

* Distinguished Alumni Award, 1978, California Institute of Technology
* Collier Trophy, 1979, by the National Aeronautics Association
("awarded annually for the greatest achievement in Aeronautics and
Astronautics in America")
* Reed Aeronautical Award, 1979, by the American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics ("the most notable achievement in the
field of aeronautical science and engineering")
* Edward Longstreth Medal, 1979, by the Franklin Institute
* Ingenieur of the Century Gold Medal, 1980, by the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers; also the Spirit of St. Louis Medal, 1978
* Inventor of the Year Award, 1981, by the Association for the
Advancement of Invention and Innovation
* Klemperer Award, 1981, OSTIV, Paderborn, Germany
* I.B. Laskowitz Award, 1981, New York Academy of Science
* The Lindbergh Award, 1982, by the Lindbergh Foundation ("to a person
who contributes significantly to achieving a balance between
technology and the environment")
* Engineer of the Year Award, 1982, Engineers’ Council, National
Engineers Week
* Golden Plate Award, 1982, American Academy of Achievement
* Gold Air Medal, by the Federation Aeronautique Internationale
* Aircraft Design Award, 1982, AIAA
* Distinguished Service Award, Federal Aviation Administration
* Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied
Meteorology, 1984, American Meteorological Society
* Public Service Grand Achievement Award, NASA
* Frontiers of Science and Technology Award, 1986, first award in this
category given by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of
Claims of the Paranormal
* The "Lipper Award", 1986, for outstanding contribution to
creativity, by the O-M Association (Odyssey of the Mind)
* Guggenheim Medal, 1987, jointly by the American Institute of
Aeronautics and Astronautics, the Society of Automotive Engineers, and
the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
* National Air and Space Museum Trophy for Current Achievement, 1988
* Enshrinement in The National Aviation Hall of Fame, July 1991,
Dayton, Ohio
* SAE Edward N. Cole Award for Automotive Engineering Innovation,
September 1991
* Scientist of the Year, 1992 ARCS (Achievement Rewards for College
Scientists), San Diego Chapter
* Pioneer of Invention, 1992, United Inventors Association
* Chrysler Award for Innovation in Design, 1993
* Honorary Member designation, American Meteorological Society, 1995
* American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Ralph Coats Roe Medal,
November 1998
* Howard Hughes Memorial Award, Aero Club of Southern California,
January 1999
* Calstart’s 1998 Blue Sky Merit Award, February 1999
* 1999 National Convention of the Soaring Society of America,
dedicated to Paul MacCready, Feb. 1999
* Special Achievement Award, Design News, March 1999
* Included in Time magazine’s “The Century’s Greatest Minds” (March
29, 1999) series “on the 100 most influential people of the century”
* Lifetime Achievement Aviation Week Laureate Award, April 1999
* Commemorated in Palau stamp, 1 of 16 “Environmental Heroes of the
20th Century”, Jan. 2000
* Institute for the Advancement of Engineering William B. Johnson
Memorial Award, Feb. 2000
* Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, National Design Award –
Product Design, Nov. 2000
* Hoyt Clarke Hottel Award, American Solar Energy Society, April 24,
2001 (“lifetime achievement as an inventor, specifically for inventing
the world’s first two solar-powered aircraft”)
* 2001 World Technology Award for Energy, England, July 2001
* Prince Alvaro de Orleans Borbon Fund, First Annual Award, October
2001, from the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, Switzerland
* The 2002 Walker Prize, Museum of Science, Boston, March 2002
* International von Karman Wings Award, Aerospace Historical Soc., May
2002
* Aerospace Award, 13th Annual Discover Magazine Award for Innovation
in Science and Technology, July 2002
* Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment, The Heinz
Family Foundation, March 2003
* Bower Award and Prize in Scientific Achievement, The Franklin
Institute, April 2003
* Camarillo Air Show, Grand Marshall, August 2005
* 2005 Technology Leadership Award, San Gabriel Valley Economic
Partnership, August 2005

MacCready had many professional affiliations, including membership in
the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, and Fellow status in
the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American
Meteorological Society (he was also an AMS Certified Consulting
Meteorologist, and was a member of the AMS Council), and the Committee
for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. For two
decades he was President of the International Human-Powered Vehicle
Association. In 1999 he helped create the Dempsey-MacCready One Hour
Distance Prize and provided $46,000 for expenses and prizes; the event
concluded in July 2006 when 86 km was achieved. In April 2006 he
donated a 1/6th scale Gossamer Albatross model to Hopkins School – the
only product from a graduate on permanent display for this school that
was established 340 years ago. He has served on many technical
advisory committees and Boards of Directors for government, industry
(public and private corporations), educational institutions, and
foundations; and was most recently a Director of the Lindbergh
Foundation and the Society for Amateur Scientists. He has fifteen
patents.

He has been awarded seven honorary degrees (including Yale 1983) and
made numerous commencement addresses. He has written many popular
articles, and authored or co-authored over one hundred formal papers,
reports, and journal and book articles in the fields of aeronautics;
soaring and ultralight aircraft; biological flight; drag reduction;
surface transportation; wind energy; weather modification; cloud
physics; turbulence, diffusion, and wakes; equipment and measurement
techniques; and perspectives on technology, efficiency, and global
consequences and opportunities. As keynote/invited speaker he lectured
widely for industry and educational institutions, emphasizing
creativity and the development of broad thinking skills.



http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena/org/i/...up.html?num=18
Paul MacCready's second human-powered airplane, the Gossamer
Albatross, flew across the English Channel in June 1979, pedaled and
piloted by Bryan Allen.

http://www.mit.edu/afs/athena/org/i/...up.html?num=21
The Helios, a solar-powered flying wing, has a wingspan of 247 feet.
It can reach extremely high altitudes and stay aloft for months at a
time.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_MacCready

http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/ima/maccready_bio.html
http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/ima/maccready_video.html
Video 1:
Flight of the Gossamer Condor

Video 2:
Doing More with Much Less
Paul MacCready wrote and produced this video, which demonstrates
the advantages of solar energy and discusses the imperative to
find less energy-intensive ways to live and work.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_to_fly
http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/a...ider_handbook/
http://www.faa.gov/library/manuals/a...-h-8083-13.pdf
Page 56:
Figure 4-10. The MacCready ring.
Some variometers are equipped with a rotatable rim speed
scale called a MacCready ring. This scale indicates the optimum
airspeed to fly when traveling between thermals for
maximum cross-country performance.



http://www.examiner.com/a-906994~Hum...eady_Dies.html
Human-Powered Flight's MacCready Dies

Aug 29, 2007 8:21 PM (1 day ago)
By JOHN ANTCZAK, AP

LOS ANGELES (Map, News) - Paul MacCready, the pioneering designer of
the first fully capable human-powered flying machine, has died, a
spokesman for the company he founded said Wednesday. He was 81.

MacCready was recently diagnosed with a serious ailment and died in
his sleep Tuesday, said Steve Gitlin, a spokesman for AeroVironment
Inc. of Monrovia, which MacCready founded in 1971. The family did not
wish to disclose details, he said.

On Aug. 23, 1977, the MacCready-designed, lightweight Gossamer Condor
made the first sustained, controlled flight powered solely by a human.
The flight, pedal-powered by pilot Bryan Allen, lasted just 7 1/2
minutes but covered a figure-eight course with pylons a half-mile
apart at the airport in Shafter, Calif.

The plane, made of aluminum, foam, piano wires and Mylar - a
lightweight but strong polyester material - weighed just 70 pounds.

The flight won MacCready the $95,000 Henry Kremer Prize, which had
been established in 1959, and earned him the title "father of
human-powered flight."

MacCready, whose retirement as chairman of AeroVironment due to
illness was announced Aug. 20, died less than a week after the 30th
anniversary of the historic flight.

"Of all his accomplishments, Paul's greatest contribution may have
been his remarkable ability to demonstrate that 'impossible' is no
match for human imagination and perseverance," Tim Conver, chairman,
chief executive and president of AeroVironment, said in a statement.

In 1979, MacCready had another first when his Gossamer Albatross, also
70 pounds and sporting a 96-foot wingspan, made the first
human-powered flight across the English Channel.

Allen was also the human engine for that flight, which lasted nearly
three hours and covered 22 miles.

MacCready was awarded a new Kremer prize of $213,000.

Born in New Haven, Conn., in 1925, MacCready was a model plane
enthusiast during childhood, soloed as a pilot at age 16 and flew in a
Navy flight training program during World War II, according to
Aerovironment.

MacCready founded an atmospheric science research firm that used small
aircraft with instrumentation to study the insides of storms, and then
founded AeroVironment, which is involved in unmanned aircraft systems
and efficient electric energy systems.

MacCready is survived by his wife, Judy, three sons and two
grandchildren.



http://www.examiner.com/a-906932~Pau...ies_at_81.html
Aug 29, 2007 7:53 PM (1 day ago)
By JOHN ANTCZAK, AP

LOS ANGELES (Map, News) - Paul MacCready, pioneering designer of the
first fully capable human-powered flying machine, has died, a
spokesman said Wednesday. He was 81.

MacCready was recently diagnosed with a serious ailment and died in
his sleep Tuesday, said Steve Gitlin, a spokesman for AeroVironment
Inc. of Monrovia, which MacCready founded in 1971. The family did not
wish to disclose details, he said.

On Aug. 23, 1977, the MacCready-designed, lightweight Gossamer Condor
made the first sustained, controlled flight powered solely by a human.
The flight, pedal-powered by pilot Bryan Allen, lasted just 7 1/2
minutes but covered a figure-eight course with pylons a half-mile
apart at the airport in Shafter, Calif.

The plane, made of aluminum, foam, piano wires and Mylar - a
lightweight but strong polyester material - weighed just 70 pounds.

The flight won MacCready the $95,000 Henry Kremer Prize, which had
been established in 1959, and earned him the title "father of
human-powered flight."

MacCready's retirement as chairman of AeroVironment due to illness was
announced Aug. 20 and his death came less than a week after the 30th
anniversary of the historic flight.

"Of all his accomplishments, Paul's greatest contribution may have
been his remarkable ability to demonstrate that 'impossible' is no
match for human imagination and perseverance," Tim Conver, chairman,
chief executive and president of AeroVironment, said in a statement.

In 1979, MacCready had another first when his Gossamer Albatross, also
70 pounds and sporting a 96-foot wingspan, made the first
human-powered flight across the English Channel.

Allen was also the human engine for that flight, which lasted nearly
three hours and covered 22 miles.

MacCready was awarded a new Kremer prize of $213,000.

During a 10th anniversary reunion of participants in the Albatross'
flight, MacCready said it was a symbolic achievement.

"It helped change people's perceptions about how we can do more with
less," he said. "We've reached an era of limits on Earth, so it is
really important."

Born in New Haven, Conn., in 1925, MacCready was a model plane
enthusiast during childhood, soloed as a pilot at age 16 and flew in a
Navy flight training program during World War II, according to
Aerovironment.

He received a bachelor of science degree from Yale University in 1947.
He then earned a master's degree in physics from the California
Institute of Technology, followed by a Ph.D. in aeronautics in 1952.

In the meantime, through the late 1940s and into the 1950s, he became
a national soaring champion and then an international champion while
working on sailplane development.

He founded an atmospheric science research firm that used small
aircraft with instrumentation to study the insides of storms, and then
founded AeroVironment, which is involved in unmanned aircraft systems
and efficient electric energy systems.

In the 1980s, AeroVironment flew human-piloted, solar-powered
aircraft, first the Gossamer Penguin, and then the Solar Challenger,
which made a 163-mile flight from France to England at an altitude of
11,000 feet.

AeroVironment then turned to unmanned, solar-powered, high-altitude
aircraft in projects supported by the U.S. Defense Department and then
NASA.

An aircraft named Pathfinder with a 100-foot wingspan flew to an
altitude of 71,400 feet in 1997. The following year, the
120-foot-wingspan Pathfinder Plus topped 80,000 feet. In 2001, a craft
named Helios, with a 247-foot wingspan, climbed to an altitude of
96,863 feet.

AeroVironment also worked on the GM Sunraycer, a solar-powered car
that won a race across Australia in 1987, and proposed to General
Motors the concept for the battery-powered GM Impact, which led to the
carmaker's EV-1.

MacCready had a sensational flop in 1986 at the public debut of a
battery-powered, radio-controlled replica of a giant pterodactyl
commissioned by the Smithsonian Institution for a movie. The
18-foot-long replica with flapping wings was towed down the flight
line at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., rose 600 feet, turned and
crashed, ending its 32nd flight.



http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1310
Dr. Paul MacCready was selected by Time magazine in 1999 as one of the
'Heroes of the Planet.'


http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/mac0pro-1
Paul MacCready Profile

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/mac0int-1
Engineer of the Century

Five Page Interview
January 12, 1991
Pasadena, California

[Video clips interspersed throughout]

....
As I look back, I realize I probably had some manifestations that
would be called dyslexia now. Not a basket case but, certainly in
some things, a short attention span. If I would start reading a
paragraph of history, by the time I was to the second sentence my
mind would be a thousand miles away. And even in physics classes,
I would tend to daydream about other things, not getting so much
good out of the class.


Do you think that's a shortcoming of the school system?

Paul MacCready: Yes, and of our whole culture. People without dyslexia
seem like oddballs to me. When we were evolving into homo sapiens,
100,000 years ago in the savannas of Africa, why would the ability to
look at little wiggly lines and curlicues on a flat sheet and
interpret sounds and messages from them have anything to do with
survival? I can understand how other things that dyslexics may be
pretty good at -- the ability to see, run, reason, fight the lion,
whatever -- all those talents provided survival and therefore
evolutionary selection. The ability to read -- which is so much what
our modern civilization is focused on, 'til we all get to be TV
addicts -- seems sort of unnatural. But our whole school system and
culture is built up around that. I think there may be a sort of
mismatch between that, and what people really are.

....

Video (Page two)
I remember a newsreel in, let's say, 1938, when I was 13 year old,
that showed a sailplane flying over a slope at El Mirage. Just
this big, graceful machine flying along -- it still sticks in my
mind as an early memory. The newsreel also showed a crash a few
minutes later, but that didn't bother me. No one was hurt. It was
such a wonderful kind of flying. And I found that it was a
wonderful, addicting hobby.

It's [soaring] a very scientific sort of hobby, its not just like
going out and rowing a boat. You get involved in the science of the
vehicle, because the vehicle has to be efficient. You have to learn
something about meteorology to figure out where the upcurrents are and
how to make proper use of them. It doesn't matter what your background
is, you become a scientist of sorts if you get involved actively in
sailplaning.

I didn't do anything that I thought was dangerous. Danger is not the
least bit appealing. It's just dumb. You should avoid it. When you are
flying inside thunderstorms, you go to where some of the most vicious
weather is, maybe in some hailstorm, into the hail-generating part of
the cloud. Huge upcurrents and downcurrents and big turbulence. You
can get into things that are a bit more intense than expected, and you
may have to land in some giant wind, with big wind shear. You get a
proper respect for weather, and you try to be very careful.

....

You have now built, if I have the number correct, five planes that are
powered either by human energy, or by solar energy. What is it that
fascinates you about minimal or low-energy vehicles? What is it that
got you so focused on that?


Paul MacCready: What was really fascinating about human-powered flight
was the £50,000 prize for achieving it. That's the sole reason that I
got into it. A subsequent project of human-powered flight was the
Gossamer Albatross flight across the Channel. That was for £100,000.
That was the glorious motive for doing that project. After that, the
projects were done for somewhat more altruistic reasons. One thing led
to another, and we couldn't have anticipated what happened. They all
have tended to feature light-weight, pushing-the-frontier, low-power,
electric power, solar power, human power and so on. There was a lot of
random influence, but it all began because of prize money.

You had a particular economic incentive, a particular reason that you
were interested in that prize money. What was it?

Paul MacCready: I had guaranteed a relative's loan at a bank for
roughly $100,000 for him to start a company which didn't succeed, and
he couldn't pay the money back, and as guarantor of the note, I was
obligated to pay the money back. Because of some peculiar
circumstances, I thought I had some liquid assets around, but they had
evaporated while all this was going on. So I was stuck with the debt,
which was rather annoying. There wasn't anything I could do about it.
And, I didn't have any special plans on what to do, but I couldn't
figure out how to handle it. But I was going on this vacation trip in
the summer of 1976, having time to just day dream, let the mind dawdle
around on what it wanted to think about. Nibble away on old memories,
and new thoughts and making connections that I otherwise would not
have made.

.... The significant prize produced our Gossamer Condor, without which
there would not have been a Gossamer Albatross, without which there
would not have been the Solar Challenger, or the Pterodactyl. Without
all of these there wouldn't have been the Sunraycer, the solar-powered
car that won the race across Australia in '87. Without that, there
would not have been the Impact, a battery-powered car that is now
going into mass production.

....

It had to be larger and lighter than any plane had been made until
then. It ended up with a 96-foot span and 55 pounds, occasionally up
to 70 pounds, which is pretty light. Unprecedented in the way people
have made airplanes.

We went back to what birds have been doing for a hundred million
years. Because the flight was so slow, turns were fairly large, I
thought you'd have a wing that always had the same shape, and you
could gently get around the turn. But we were having huge problems
with the turn and with other aspects of stability and control. We
finally did some calculations and realized the huge increase of angle,
and the tack you get on one wing versus the other wing. In order to
maintain lift, you have to change the angle of the wing. You just
plain have to twist the wing, and it suddenly began working pretty
well. I should have figured that out ahead of time, and incorporated
it into the first vehicle, but because I have mental blinders like
everybody else, I went off on what I thought was a simpler approach. I
tried to do everything on this project as simply as possible, assuming
that the simple answer would work. You knew it wouldn't always, but
that saves you a lot of time, so when you get to a troublesome thing,
you can spend some time with it.

Then, we took a couple of slabs of balsa wood and made a little model
in about an hour, and pushed it around in a swimming pool. That gave
us some final insights about what our computer programs were trying
tell us. The computer programs were correct, but they didn't give us
any insight. This swimming pool event gave us the insight to complete
all the stability and control problems. We came up with a final
version and it worked.

We were getting longer flights each day, cleaning it up, tightening
the Mylar, getting things that don't ripple as much, and getting the
pilot more accustomed to it. To win the prize, we had to do a
figure-eight flight around pylons half a mile apart. He did a flight
that almost completed the one-mile figure-eight. You have to go over a
ten-foot marker, at the very beginning and at the very end. We had
done a flight of almost eight minutes, but couldn't get over that last
hurdle. It was pretty obvious that the next time, if the weather was
right, it was going to work. We got a forecast of appropriate weather,
and we got the official observer out. It's a two and a half hour drive
from here to get to the airport, so we went out the previous night. We
got everything together, and the flight succeeded -- just barely.

This prize of Henry Kremer's that had stood for 18 years no longer
existed, so about four months later, he put up a new prize for a
flight across the English Channel, which is a 22-mile flight across a
dangerous body of water. I think he expected it to take another 18
years for somebody to do that, because it was so much longer than the
one-mile flight. But we just cleaned up the Condor, gave it a more
accurately contoured wing, many more ribs, and so on. We focused on
structure and didn't pay any new attention to aerodynamics, because
that had all been solved in the previous one. This new plane, which we
would call the Gossamer Albatross, could get by on maybe a third less
power. A bicyclist can put out a little less power for a much longer
period of time, so Brian Allen, our pilot, could fly this new plane
for hours.

We were using carbon fiber composite tubes instead of aluminum,
lightweight foam ribs, a lot of sort of space age materials to make a
better vehicle. It flew right from the beginning, doing just what it
should. We had the usual accidents and control problems, but it was
obvious this was capable of winning the prize. It was also obvious
that this was going to be a big project, to build back-up airplanes,
to test them, get them to break in controlled circumstances, rather
than out over the channel, and get them all to England, and wait
around for weather, and do more tests there, and rent boats and so on.
So we sought sponsorship. The DuPont Company whose materials we were
using a good bit of, agreed to sponsor it. It was very surprising that
they said yes at first, on a very peculiar human-powered airplane
project. They said no a couple of times before they finally agreed.

The really big pressure was organizing this thing. You had to predict
the previous day, by three o'clock, whether you were going to do a
flight the next day. None of the weather forecasts ever agreed with
the weather that subsequently materialized. It's a very difficult area
to get good weather forecasts. I had a broken foot at the time, with a
cast on, and I had to ride a bike over from the airport to a pay phone
to get the weather forecasts, and then decide whether or not to turn
on the whole project. Once the project was turned on, about 100
people, all the team, the DuPont people, journalist types, were
converging from all over Europe. It was like running D-Day out of a
telephone booth. Plus the usual pressu we were running out of money
and the weather wasn't right. Finally, we thought, "OK, let's try it."
There was really zero chance of it working right the first time, so
first plane was considered sort of a sacrificial plane. We didn't know
what was going to go wrong, but we knew that any one of a hundred
things could go wrong. We assembled the plane on an acre of concrete
called the Warren, where one of the early tunnels was being dug from
England to France, just in the right place for us.

It was up in the air and everything was going fine. There was radio
communication both ways. I was in a boat about 1,500 feet in front of
the plane navigating with radar, and figuring out where all the boats
in the channel were going to be by the time we reached them, because
you couldn't cross in front of one of the big super tankers. If you
crashed, they can't turn, and you can't be within two miles behind
them, because they leave turbulence in the air that would be too much
for the plane. So you have to know where you are going to be 20
minutes ahead of time, where they are going to be, and make little
variations in the course. The whole thing was quite a strain.

We felt that Brian could only keep the plane up for two hours. Prior
tests had shown his stamina at the amount of power the plane required.
So we only gave him enough water to avoid dehydration for two hours.
Any extra water would have added weight, and then he couldn't even
have lasted two hours. Unfortunately, a head wind cropped up and,
after two hours, he was still nowhere near the French coast. He was
all out of water, and the increased turbulence in the air made the
power required a little bit higher for the plane. Finally, he had to
give up and signal for a tow. A little rubber boat with several people
in it, went around under him with a fishing pole, and was trying to
snag a line on a little ring on the plane, to tow it to one coast or
the other. But during this maneuvering, he had to move up higher, and
he found that the air was a lot calmer up there, and it took a little
less power. Even though they were trying to catch the plane all the
time, he kept dodging. The radio wasn't working, but he signaled that
he didn't want to be hooked up, and he decided to continue for five
more minutes and give it a try. The five minutes became ten, became
15, became 20. Some of the time he was down low.

For a while he was down really just six inches above the water, and
the changing winds and somehow he struggled along as his left leg
cramped from the dehydration. He pedaled mostly with his right. Then
his right leg would cramp, and he would pedal mostly with his left.
Towards the end both legs were cramped, but he somehow got that last
little bit. And there was extra turbulence that was almost beyond the
capability of the plane to handle its controls, just in that last bit,
50 meters off shore. But finally he made it, and it was almost a
three-hour flight. Beyond all odds, just impossible for human stamina
to have kept going that long, but he did.

If it had been high tide, I think he wouldn't have made it, because we
would have had to go an extra hundred meters to reach the shore. It
was that close. He had worked for the last several months before the
flight with a full-time exercise physiologist -- Professor Joe
Mastropaolo, who helped him train to build up his stamina. He was a
good bicyclist, but he hadn't been doing Olympic training. He worked
at it very hard, and Mastropaolo, I think, gave him the real spirit,
the attitude that you just don't quit. It doesn't matter how
impossible, how painful. If you are conscious, you are still pedaling.
Somehow this sunk into Brian. What he did is beyond reasonable human
stamina. I've never seen anything like it. So, another day of great
relief. This pressure was over. We were pretty sure we would succeed
some time, but to have it work the first time was remarkable.

How did old Kremer take this, when you knocked off the second prize,
on your way to the third one?

Paul MacCready: He really wanted a Britisher to win the first prize.
There was a British team, sort of working towards the second prize. I
think maybe he thought that prize would be just right for the British
team, but they didn't come close. I think they were annoyed that an
American won the next one. They were also annoyed DuPont was
sponsoring it. It looked like this was a big corporation project.
Actually, DuPont didn't sponsor the development of the plane. They
said, do the project your own way and they'd take care of the major
expenses.

There was another Kremer prize of about £10,000 -- around $15,000 --
to duplicate our first Gossamer Condor flight. A couple of high school
kids could have just copied the Condor, and built it with $500 of
parts, and won that prize in England, but nobody did. It's kind of
hard to figure out. But people in England were most cooperative. We
got help throughout. People didn't seem to care that we were Yanks
from overseas. As soon as we landed, the hangar that we had been
intending to use fell through, and in just that day, we were able to
get the Manston RAF base to provide a hangar, which they cleaned out.
It was just big enough for us to set up operations in. A lot of people
cooperated like that. They were delighted to see the prize won. That
was one of the reasons that we were delighted to have the plane go to
the science museum in London for a while. I gave it to the Smithsonian
here, but they loaned it to the science museum in London.

....

You think about that a great deal these days.

Paul MacCready: Energy options? Yes. Energy is one part of the whole
problem. There are too many people and too much consumption, and not
enough earth. We could get by with it in the past, but population has
tripled since I was born, and there is more energy per capita being
used now, and species are being wiped out. The latest number I saw is
that one species is disappearing every four minutes because of man. We
are facing a very different ball game. You can't extrapolate it from
the past. Anything that helps us get along on this limited world is
better. Doing more with less is part of it, and somehow getting off
our energy addiction is important. You can do so many things with so
much less energy that we now use. Now regular airliners, especially
modern ones, are really designed brilliantly. They are made for
efficiency. Nobody cares what they look like on the outside, but they
are made to do their job. The aerodynamics is elegant, the structure
is elegant, and they are really fine.

Cars, on the other hand, are designed for a very different purpose.
Styling is important, inexpensive mass-production is important,
safety, operation by unskilled people, and you like peppy performance.
When you do all that, they consume a lot of power. There aren't any
airplane aerodynamicists involved in their design, although there are
good aerodynamicists mixed in with the stylists. But look at the
underside of any car. It sees the air just as much as the top-side
sees it, but you realize how little attention is paid to smooth
aerodynamics of cars. Gasoline was so cheap, and gives so much energy,
it didn't matter.

Many people have looked at solar power as such a promising technology.
Why haven't we done more with it?

Paul MacCready: The biggest reason we haven't done more with all sorts
of alternative energies is that the existing energies we have are so
wonderful. Oil is relatively inexpensive. Not when you look at all its
real costs, but in some ways it is. And natural gas is good. And the
nuclear power plants you already have are relatively inexpensive.
Hydropower is pretty good. But we can't really have much more nuclear
power -- there are a lot of troubles with it -- and you can't get much
more hydro power, so those are limited. Coal has a lot of trouble
associated with it, but these are all somewhat inexpensive. When you
try some new thing, you find that it is not as cheap as these others,
which are more limited in their future and have some negatives, like
pollution, about them. Unfortunately, all the things people have tried
are more expensive. Solar cells were very expensive, but they have
steadily come down in price. In the best circumstances, they can
almost compete with certain of the oil burning power plants. Wind
power is the same. Its been expensive, and we had subsidies for it.

....

If you were a galactic explorer, coming from some distant galaxy, and
you looked in at the earth, and tried to write it up and characterize.
"What are humans? What are they like?" The easiest analogy that you
have is a cancer. A cancer just grows like that. From the standpoint
of the cancer, it's great. More cancer cells all the time. From the
standpoint of the other cells that they are crowding out, it's the
pits. And of course, after a while, they kill their host, which is bad
for the cancer cells as well as the other cells. And that's what we
are on the road to.

Paul MacCready: Man has become God. We used to think we were just this
little thing, at the mercy of circumstances, lightning, the big world,
whatever. Now, we can control things. We can wipe out all the other
species. We can do genetic engineering and create new species, and
just do things that were beyond comprehension before, and turn the
world into whatever we want. I don't think humans have the brains, the
wisdom, to be very good at this, because that's not the way they were
brought up. They've got all these huge tools, but they're like a two
year-old with a .45 automatic, who doesn't know what to do with it.
What you'd like is not to have as many automatics around, and get that
two year-old a little brighter.

But it's not inevitable. Man is an awfully bright creature, with a lot
of creativity, and a strong interest in survival. So things may work
out. There are a lot of serious efforts, like the Biosphere II project
in Arizona. It was a very exciting experiment.

I alternate between pessimism and optimism, and I've found the best
pessimism summary comes from the great philosopher, Woody Allen, who
said, "Civilization is at a crossroads. One road leads to misery and
devastation, the other to total destruction. We must choose wisely."
And there is a lot more to that statement than you might think.

----


http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=532
Mister Impossible
By Bill Moore

From the Archives: 1998 interview with Dr. Paul MacCready
....

Dr. Paul MacCready was one of my inspirations for aviation when I was
growing up.
I remember watching National Geographic coverage of his human powered
flight effors on TV.

He definitely earned his wings...