6 ms·

Dead Simple Human Powered Airplane (2013)

36 points by pearkes 12y ago

pearkes 12y ago
My old roommate just emailed me about this, he and his girlfriend are both working on the project. One thing they noted: > The project is getting kicked out of our current building in November. We are looking for a new home for a few months. Somewhere in the south bay. Light industrial facility would be great but some office space with some large open areas (former cube farm) would work too. An aircraft hanger would be awesome....but we are not holding our breath....any decent space will do. Please get in touch if you have such a space / know someone / can pull some strings :). They are also having a 'Friends don't let friends build alone' day in Mountain View in early october. Email me (profile) and I'll forward it along if you're interested!
- click170 12y ago
  This 'Friends dont let friends build alone' day sounds like a neat idea, it would be awesome if these popped up in other cities too!
rll 12y ago
A plane with "Dead" in its name seems like a bad choice.
- lucb1e 12y ago
  Or Malaysian for that matter. No but seriously, I think most people will understand the function of the word dead in "dead simple".
vegancap 12y ago
Is it bad that I imagined 350 people in a 747-400 all peddling on bikes?
- vegancap 12y ago
  Lol, lost 2 karma points for making a joke!
  - vegancap 12y ago
    Hacker News doesn't like mild-hearted jokes, apparently. Lesson learnt.
- airbus 12y ago
  File an improvement patent: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/travel/airbus-saddle-seat-patent/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/travel/airbus-saddle-seat-pate...
lotharbot 12y ago
I'm wondering how this compares to other human-powered aircraft like the Gossamer Albatross (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross -- crossed the English Channel in 1979 in just under 3 hours). IIRC the Gossamer Albatross had a similarly simple twisted bike chain transmission and some of the other simple features here.
ErikRogneby 12y ago
The first thing that popped in to my mind when I read the post title was a paper airplane.
bkeroack 12y ago
This seems really cool, but I'm not sure I would ever go above ~50 feet in altitude with it. It's a little scary that a leg cramp could cause me to plummet hundreds of feet to my death.
- pingou 12y ago
  Isn't it supposed to have a very high glide ratio?
  - VLM 12y ago
    Aside from that Vne is like 7 m/s and cruise is 6.1 m/s or about 13 miles per hour. Also the pilot in level flight would output 300 watts or so. The engineering values are vaguely similar to some bicycle calculations. Look for "Or, to put it in perspective, about 19 minutes to raise a 250 pound bike+rider 1000 feet." and thats at an assumed 300 watts or so output. So your descent at zero power out will be similar, it'll take about fifteen minutes to drop 1000 feet. http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/13090/extra-power-needed-uphill-for-weight-increase http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/13090/extra-powe... Personally I wouldn't worry about gliding to a landing, I'd be terrified of a wing folding up or shearing off and THEN you drop like a rock. Or indirectly (control system fails in full dive, Vne is like 16 mph so the wings rip off, then you descend much faster....
    - clueless123 12y ago
      I would assume they will not be flying higher than a few feet from the ground ( ~ 20) or that they will carring an emergency parachute..
      - gomerclaus 12y ago
        I didn't think parachutes were effective below a certain altitude. Off-hand, the only possible solution that comes to mind would be something like the airbag system NASA's been using to land some of the Mars rovers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags). Anyone else got any ideas?
nsedlet 12y ago
Also, if you haven't heard of it, there are a few teams working on human-powered helicopters. In 2013, one of them became the first to win the Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Prize, which no team had been able to do for 33 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_I._Sikorsky_Human_Powered_Helicopter_Competition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_I._Sikorsky_Human_Powered_... To win the prize, the craft had to fly for 60 seconds, achieve an altitude of 10 meters, and stay within a limited horizontal area.

36 points by pearkes 12y ago

My old roommate just emailed me about this, he and his girlfriend are both working on the project. One thing they noted: > The project is getting kicked out of our current building in November. We are looking for a new home for a few months. Somewhere in the south bay. Light industrial facility would be great but some office space with some large open areas (former cube farm) would work too. An aircraft hanger would be awesome....but we are not holding our breath....any decent space will do. Please get in touch if you have such a space / know someone / can pull some strings :). They are also having a 'Friends don't let friends build alone' day in Mountain View in early october. Email me (profile) and I'll forward it along if you're interested!

click170 12y ago
This 'Friends dont let friends build alone' day sounds like a neat idea, it would be awesome if these popped up in other cities too!

rll 12y ago

A plane with "Dead" in its name seems like a bad choice.

lucb1e 12y ago
Or Malaysian for that matter. No but seriously, I think most people will understand the function of the word dead in "dead simple".

vegancap 12y ago

Is it bad that I imagined 350 people in a 747-400 all peddling on bikes?

vegancap 12y ago
Lol, lost 2 karma points for making a joke!
- vegancap 12y ago
  Hacker News doesn't like mild-hearted jokes, apparently. Lesson learnt.
airbus 12y ago
File an improvement patent: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/travel/airbus-saddle-seat-patent/ http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/17/travel/airbus-saddle-seat-pate...

lotharbot 12y ago

I'm wondering how this compares to other human-powered aircraft like the Gossamer Albatross (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross -- crossed the English Channel in 1979 in just under 3 hours). IIRC the Gossamer Albatross had a similarly simple twisted bike chain transmission and some of the other simple features here.

ErikRogneby 12y ago

The first thing that popped in to my mind when I read the post title was a paper airplane.

bkeroack 12y ago

This seems really cool, but I'm not sure I would ever go above ~50 feet in altitude with it. It's a little scary that a leg cramp could cause me to plummet hundreds of feet to my death.

pingou 12y ago
Isn't it supposed to have a very high glide ratio?
- VLM 12y ago
  Aside from that Vne is like 7 m/s and cruise is 6.1 m/s or about 13 miles per hour. Also the pilot in level flight would output 300 watts or so. The engineering values are vaguely similar to some bicycle calculations. Look for "Or, to put it in perspective, about 19 minutes to raise a 250 pound bike+rider 1000 feet." and thats at an assumed 300 watts or so output. So your descent at zero power out will be similar, it'll take about fifteen minutes to drop 1000 feet. http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/13090/extra-power-needed-uphill-for-weight-increase http://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/13090/extra-powe... Personally I wouldn't worry about gliding to a landing, I'd be terrified of a wing folding up or shearing off and THEN you drop like a rock. Or indirectly (control system fails in full dive, Vne is like 16 mph so the wings rip off, then you descend much faster....
  - clueless123 12y ago
    I would assume they will not be flying higher than a few feet from the ground ( ~ 20) or that they will carring an emergency parachute..
    - gomerclaus 12y ago
      I didn't think parachutes were effective below a certain altitude. Off-hand, the only possible solution that comes to mind would be something like the airbag system NASA's been using to land some of the Mars rovers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags). Anyone else got any ideas?

nsedlet 12y ago

Also, if you haven't heard of it, there are a few teams working on human-powered helicopters. In 2013, one of them became the first to win the Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Prize, which no team had been able to do for 33 years: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_I._Sikorsky_Human_Powered_Helicopter_Competition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_I._Sikorsky_Human_Powered_... To win the prize, the craft had to fly for 60 seconds, achieve an altitude of 10 meters, and stay within a limited horizontal area.