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Today in Engineering History: Human-Powered Aircraft Flies 1 km

By atesmeh | March 18, 2015

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The Pedaliante was designed and built by Italian-American aerospace engineer Enea Bossi. Image credit: Enea Bossi archive, Wikipedia Commons

On this day in history, 1937, the Pedaliante (Italian for “Pedal Glider”) flew approximately 1 kilometer outside of Milan. The human-powered aircraft was designed and constructed by Enea Bossi and Vittorio Bonomi, and it is arguably credited with making the first entirely human-powered flight in 1936 during a practice trial.

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In 1936, the Italian government created a contest that offered 100,000 lire for a one kilometer human-powered flight. Unfortunately, the contest was only open to Italian citizens. Despite Bossi’s American citizenship, he decided to enter the contest anyway.

The Pedaliante, 1937. Image credit: Enea Bossi archive, Wikipedia Commons

Bossi’s monoplane had a 58 foot wingspan with an area of 252 square feet. It also had two laminated balsa wood propellers of about 6.2 feet in diameter. The pilot of the Pedaliante sat semi-upright and would pedal to transmit power via a bicycle chain to an overhead transverse shaft that was bevel-geared to the propellers.

On March 18, 1937 the aircraft was pedaled for an entire kilometer by a pilot named Emilio Casco. However, a catapult was used to launch the Pedialante nine meters into the air, thus eliminating the aircraft from winning the competition.


Filed Under: Aerospace + defense

 

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