man-powered airplane

I would like to locate some art wurk from private flight projects if I
wuld not be in violatin of US patents or copyrites. I have read that
some yers ago there weres several investors who would offer a lot of
prixe money for rites to design of man powered air flight.Is there any
solidworks or maya draftings of projeks in anyones possesions please.
Thank you very much,
M. Fontopolous

 

Read this about the guy who won the prize.

http://www.ucar.edu/governance/meetings/oct00/maccready.html

Bo

 

Mr Marcos,
During the latter part of 1976 , I was privileged to be a member of a
design team that worked on a privately funded "human powered" flight
project headed and funded by two Private Investors. One had an
extensive Aeronautical background, and the other was a Mechanical
Engineer of some renoun. They too, were in pursuit of a $100,000
prize, but more importantly, to them anyway, were their hopes of being
recognized as serious contenders for much larger future projects
normally funded by Nasa, Du Pont, G E, Cal-Tech and MIT. They were
fairly successful in raising some funds for the project, but nowhere
near what DuPont and the other backers of the more famous projects,
namely the one by Dr. Mac Cready, and several by MIT, and Cal-Tech.
These were the big "players", and rightly so, as their talents, know-
how and Aeronautical background , was at that time, unparalelled.
Our project had a grand total of three Engineers, and a team of six
design people, yours truly included, and five more men and one woman,
experienced in fiberglass construction. Without being either in the
Political, or Intellectual limelight, as the more famous teams were,
it is of course difficult to raise the enormous funding from private
industry needed for development of a research and development project
of this type. Needless to say that our funding didn't even approach
that of the three big teams. All in all, however, it was quite an
experience, in that the engineering problems that arise, in an attempt
to build a craft, with a total empty weight of 110 pounds or less,
and to engineer and fabricate mechanical linkage of ultra-light
materials, gearing, carbon shafting and propeller to develop .5 HP
plus mechanical advantage from a light but leg-strong, enduring and
conditioned athletic power source , are enormous to say the least. It
was Dr. Paul Mac Cready, the eventual winner of several prizes, and
qualifications a mile long, who brilliantly reasoned that the
longer and lighter the wing-span, of an ultra-light, the less HP
needed to pedal the mechanical linkage to get off the ground. He
single handedly, created a need and opened doors for several
Industries, created for the purpose of catering to the development of
ultra-light materials, both metallic, and carbon-based. Many ultra-
light industries exist today because of his efforts.
Unfortunately, our project never quite got off the ground, both
figuratively and literally, but the learning experience was
imeasureable.
An Owens-Corning Draftsman and myself were teamed up to design and
develop light yet strong airfoils and wings with a total weight of
80 lbs. The wing span of our craft was to be 84 ft, which included a
2.7 ft spacer between each wing which were supports and mounts for the
fuselage containing all the linkage, gearing and peddling
mechanism, along with of course with the ergonomic saddle for a human
weighing no more than 140 lbs, in top physical condition.
If I can get my hands on some of our old drawings and prints, I would
be happy to share some of them with you. It is a given that many
aspects of the project remain proprietary, even now, and therefore not
for public view.
All the designing and drafting that was done at that time was before
I was involved in computers, and all drafting was done with
Engineering Instruments, on drawing boards. I didn't do any
conversion to CAD until I started in computers in 1999, and at that
time I converted most of the wing and airfoil designs, and some of
the shaft, beveled gearing and prop designs into Autocad, and my
intention is to eventually re-do most of it in Solidworks, or at
least whatever parts of it that confidentiality will allow.
Good luck in your search for data of this most exciting and
fascinating subject.

G. De Angelis
Valhalla Grafix LTD
De Angelis Tool

www.valhallagrafix.com
www.deangelistool.com