If you are still wondering as to how a flight for just over a minute at the height of a little over 10 feet could win a team of engineers such a huge prize, then it is time for the reveal. Aerovelo’s Atlas wasn’t just any flight. It was a human-powered helicopter and this flight helped it win the AHS Igor I. Sikorsky Challenge.
Da Vinci’s dream
When celebrated polymath Leonardo da Vinci first conceived the idea of a helicopter or aerial screw in a drawing in the 1480s, his imaginary flying-machine was powered by humans. Fast-forward 500 years and the flying machines were a reality. Only, however, these weren’t powered by humans.
The idea that the pilot provides all the power needed for a flight remained a radical one. Inspired by the success of two record-setting human-powered fixed-wing aircraft flights in the 1970s, the American Helicopter Society (AHS) International (now known as the Vertical Flight Society) announced the AHS Igor I. Sikorsky Challenge in 1980.
The challenge was named in honour of Sikorsky, who was a Russian-American aviation pioneer in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft and one of the founders of this technical society for the advancement of vertical flight. The challenge, which was a test of ingenuity, determination and athleticism, laid down certain conditions.
Conditions of the challenge
In order to win, a human had to hover at an altitude of at least 3 metres under their own power and remain aloft for at least a minute, with the pilot remaining within the boundaries of a 10-by-10 metre square area. The winner of the challenge was set to be awarded $25,000.
In the decades that followed, over 20 teams put their heart and soul into designing and building a human-powered helicopter that could meet the requirements of the challenge. While most didn’t even make it off the ground, some did enjoy moderate success.
In 1989, the California State Polytechnic University’s Da Vinci III became the first recorded human-powered helicopter flight. It achieved a height of 20 cm (yes, you read that right) and was airborne for less than 10 seconds. In 1994, Japan’s Nihon University tasted some success with their Yuri I. Yuri I was also able to reach the height of 20 cm, but was able to maintain it for close to 20 seconds.
Increased prize money
With no human-powered helicopters taking off the ground since the 1990s, Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation decided to raise the stakes. By pledging $250,000 for the AHS Igor I. Sikorsky Challenge in 2009, they made the contest even more attractive. And it certainly had the desired effect as two teams – Aerovelo from Canada and Team Gamera from the University of Maryland in the U.S. – soon made it a two horse race.
It seemed a matter of time before one of them would achieve what had been considered impossible for nearly 30 years. Since the craft required was delicate and difficult to build, both teams seemed to be in an out-of-sync schedule – one team was flying and trying to win the challenge while the other was rebuilding and addressing damages.
Aerial view of the Aerovelo Atlas as seen at the Ontario Soccer Centre.
In the end, the Aerovelo team emerged on top. On June 13, 2013, in an indoor football facility where they had been flying before practices started in the evenings, the Aerovelo Atlas met the criteria of a 33-year-old challenge in their last attempt of the day.
Following earlier flights on the day in which they had reached between 2 and 2.5 metres, Atlas finally reached 3.3 metres. What’s more, Atlas stayed airborne for 64 seconds and the pilot remained within the designated 10-by-10 metre square zone.
Weighs just 55 kg!
The Aerovelo Atlas used a four-rotor system with each blade spanning 67 feet (20.4 m), giving it a maximum dimension of 157 feet (47.8 m) on a diagonal. A modified carbon bicycle frame was suspended in the middle, with the pilot sitting on it and powering the craft with his legs.
The Atlas weighed just 55 kg and required less power to fly than what is required for a toaster or a hairdryer. But the pilot power/weight ratio must be so high that it can only be achieved by a specially trained athlete, and that too only for a short duration.
The team behind Atlas believe that the reason for their success was the fact that they started with the basic principles and were free of unnecessary constraints. The Aerovelo team designed Atlas as big as it had to be to win the prize, and then went about deciding where they would be able to fly it. This meant that even though Atlas was twice as big as any other human-powered helicopter that had been built before and also bigger than most commercial aircraft, it was able to win the $250,000 prize money that had eluded other engineers for decades.
