Gossamer Odyssey
The Triumph of Human-Powered Flight
Grosser, Morton
First Edition
A dream comes true. Paul MacCready´s masterpice, the human powered Gossamer Albatross crosses the English channel. Pilot and engine was Bryan Allen. The author of this book was a member of the team…
On June 12, 1979, Gossamer Alborross made aviation history by becoming the first pedal-powered aircraft to cross the English Channel. If was the culmination of years of work for the Gossamer team, led by pilot Bryan Allen and designer Dr. Paul D. MacCready who had earlier won the £50,000 Kremer Prize for successfully flying the featherweight Gossomer Condor in a prescribed figure-8 pattern one half-mile long in August 1977. This prize was first offered in 1959 by British industrialist Henry Kremer (who had built Mosquito bombers during World War II) for a human-powered aircraft that could complere a prescribed course.
The story of these two incredible engineering feats, and the human drama which surrounds them, is an exciting one. Man's fascination with flight goes back hundreds, even thousands, of years, and Gossamer Odyssey reviews the fascinating, sometimes bizarre and often hilorious history of humon-powered flight from the ill-fated Icarus of legend to the publication, late in rhe nineteenth Century of Leonardo da Vincis pioneer researches in aeronautics in the six-teenth century.
Wirh a foreword by HRH Prince Charles, the book culminares in the record-shattering Gossomer Albatross flight, which begins a new chapter in the rich history of man-powered flight.
Hardcover
298 Seiten / pages
Many b/w and color photos
very good condition
London - 1981 - Michael Joseph Ltd.
Art.Nr. 23184
