Helios - flight on solar wings

It all started with the fact that in 1976, Paul made a surety of a friend and in the end had to pay the bank debt of $ 100,000. From this began a long and interesting way to create fantastic, economical and environmentally friendly aircraft, which was the crown of Helios - a plane that flies on solar batteries. two cash prize has been won, was the first cross-Channel on human-powered aircraft (which is 30 km away!) and it was created much more interesting and useful things. A very interesting way to earn money to pay off debts, right? ;)

This video in 2003, but then, what it tells us is no less important than it was then. In his fascinating speech engineer Paul McCready tells about how they created a human-powered aircraft "Gossamer Condor," which subsequently won the prize, flying 1.5 kilometers. Then it was the turn of another record, but just for fun: a slightly modified "Condor" with an experienced pilot Bryan Allen crossed the English Channel.

And in the end, he came to the creation of the aircraft on solar batteries. So there was Helios.

Planes at the demonstration videos look very unusual, and for some reason I was reminded of an airplane cartoon Hayao Miyazaki's "Castle in the Sky."

[Ted id = 176 lang = ru]