AOPA Pilot Blog: Reporting Points

Want to bet on a sure thing? The kids at the University of Maryland that built Gamera II, a human-powered helicopter, have a chance to win $10,000 to defray expenses on their next attempt at the Sikorsky challenge in 2013. They challenge requires them to reach 10 feet during a one-minute flight and remain in a 10-meter area. Watch this video and vote for it so that they win the prize. Before investing your two minutes, here’s an incentive. They have already reached nearly 10 feet in altitude and have exceeded the one-minute requirement during earlier flights. They are a sure bet to do it in 2013 and you can say you helped. They crashed a couple of times and could use the money. Give’em a break. They’re just kids. Gotta help the next generation. Stuff like that.

University of Maryland pilot Colin Gore pedals and cranks for history

UPDATE: Gamera hovered for 50 seconds before flying tests ended.

The kids at the University of Maryland’s A. James Clark School of Engineering have done it again, hovering a human-powered helicopter powered by a male cyclist for 35 seconds. To win the American Helicopter Society Igor I. Sikorsky Human-Powered Helicopter Competition (why must everything have three names?) they must hover a full minute, achieve a height of three meters at some point during the minute, and stay within a 10-square-meter area during the flight. Do that, and a school could win $250,000. Pilot and pedaler Colin Gore achieved an important second step on June 20 by staying aloft 35 seconds. Here’s a YouTube video of the event. They call the helicopter Gamera after a monster frog from a Japanese sic-fi film. Here’s the turtle’s home page. The university’s Judy Wexler took the first step last summer when she pedaled into the record books by the first and longest flight (11.4 seconds) for a woman.

As Al Marsh reported this week, Gamera took flight. The human-powered helicopter, named for the giant flying turtle in Japanese horror films, is the project of the University of Maryland’s Clark School of Engineering. (Full disclosure: My daughter attends UMd, and I freely admit to using the hashtag “#goTerps” in my Tweets on the event.)

Pilot Judy Wexler, looking poised and competent (while the engineering students jumped around out of nervous excitement, I’m guessing), was able to get the craft off the ground and hover for several seconds–long enough that the team has filed for a world aeronautical record. View the video here.