Human Powered Aircrafts
Bikalpa Bomjan Gurung: 19AE60A01
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur
Seminar dated 7 August 2019
Human Powered Aircraft (HPA) are the aircraft that
are propelled solely by the power generated by
human muscles. They are the ultimate result of the
human desire to replicate the freedom of flying birds
From the very beginning of human history, humans
have always been inspired by the flight of birds and
their freedom to reach places without any physical
barrier. Encouraged from the birds, it is believed that
one of the great craftsman and artist of ancient
Greece, Daedalus along with his son Icarus were the
first humans to actually fly by imitating the flapping
motion of bird [1]. However, there was a tragic end to
this flight from Crete as Icarus fell into the sea
though Daedalus crossed it reaching a nearby island
named Sicily. Although believed as just a myth, this
event raised the question of whether the human fight
is possible.
Attempting to answer this question of human flight
Leonardo Da Vinci invented the early design of the
flying machine based on flapping motion in 1485.
Only after four centuries in 1850’s George Cayley
developed a concept of gliding rather than flapping in
order to fly. This concept was adopted by Otto
Lilienthal and had made various successful glides
during 1891. As the humans were lifting in the air by
gliding, efforts were being made to power the glide
by adding engine and propeller to the gliders.
Langley successfully demonstrated this with his
unmanned aerodrome in 1891. The progress was
followed by the first engine powered human flight by
the Wright brothers in 1903[2]. Since the first flight,
humans have made great progress from flying 260 m
to more than 10,000 Km distance in just one century.
Although powered aircraft was taking a giant leap in
aviation, the earliest notion of flying like a bird
without powered engines was not fulfilled until 1961
when SUMPAC ( South Hampton Man Powered
Aircraft) first took off the ground and flew for 650m
[4][5]
using human power alone. Followed by several
other aircrafts such as Hatfield Puffin in the same
year increasing the distance to 908m. [4]. The
development in HPA continued over the next decade
and a significant performance was demonstrated by
another human powered aircraft Gossamer-Albatross
by crossing the English channel that covered 35 km
distance in 2hr 49 min [6]. Such great achievement
inspired research in HPA further with the
advancement in the aerodynamic design, use of high
strength to weight material, propeller efficiency, etc.
leading to the flight of MIT Daedalus in 1988 [7].
Covering the distance of 115 km in 3hr 54 min this
flight holds the record of highest range and
endurance by an HPA until date. This flight from
Crete to Santorini made it possible to witness the
myth of human powered flight of Daedalus turn into
reality.
Despite having made significant progress there seems
to be a huge gap in the milestone that engine-
powered aircraft has achieved as compared to HPA.
This gap can be attributed to the limitation of power
available in HPA. The highest power that a human
generates is around 2 horsepower whereas the long
endurance power is reduced further to about 0.5
horsepower. This limited power, combined with
transmission and propeller losses makes it harder to
generate thrust from HPA.
Due to extremely low power available HPA are
designed to have a minimum amount of drag while
also having enough lift to balance the gross weight of
aircraft. In order to achieve this, low-speed airfoils
with high camber and high lift to drag ratio are used.
Apart from having highly efficient airfoil, the wing
planform is designed to have high wingspan and high
aspect ratio (typically above 20); in order to reduce
lift induced drag significantly. Eventually making the
whole aircraft aerodynamically efficient.
While trying to achieve aerodynamically efficient
wing planform high bending stress is imparted on the
wing as compared to conventional aircraft due to
wing’s high aspect ratio. Compromise with the
aerodynamic character of the aircraft are not possible
hence the HPA is built with the material having high
strength. However, having high strength with
conventional material means to have a higher weight
which eventually increases the gross weight and
hence the power required. As a result, the composite
material with high strength to weight ratio is used in
HPA.
Additionally, the limited power in the HPA makes it
difficult to achieve high speed, the highest being the
34 km/hr [4]. At such low-speed force generated by
the control, surfaces are low. Hence, innovative
solutions of whole tail control surfaces are used in
modern HPA that increases control effectiveness.
Also since these types of aircraft are mostly designed
to fly in a straight line, high wing dihedral is used in
HPA for stability to sudden gust in a roll.
Additionally, modern propellers in HPA are equipped
with pitch control mechanism allowing to set a coarse
pitch at takeoff and fine pitch at cruise this increases
the propulsive efficiency as compared to the fixed
propeller used in previous generation HPA. Finally,
simple and minimum instruments are used in the
aircraft in order to reduce weight while also
informing the pilot minimum performance
parameters such as aircraft seed.
Apart from the design of the HPA, there are other
challenges that the human powered flight has to face
such as finding the right engine and pilot,
requirement of a calm weather condition, finding a
place to fly with no obstacle roughly above 10 ft., the
requirement of people to assist during takeoff, etc.
In addition, there are other Human Powered Aircraft
such as HP helicopter and HP airships, which take a
different approach to its design and development.
Conclusively, Human powered Aircraft has seen lots
of progress in the past seven decades flying form just
650m to 115km. However, various design constraints
such as limited power, the requirement of high aspect
ratio wing, the requirement of material with high
strength to weight ratio, minimalism in design, etc.
have restrained its progress as compared to engine
powered aircraft. As a result, although lots of
research and efforts have been put into HPA‘s the
technology has not matured enough to be proposed
for future sustainable aviation. However, the
information obtained from the HPA program has
current applications to the design of many high-
altitude, long endurance aircraft such as NASA
Helios

Keywords: Human powered Aircraft,HPA, Human flight, SUMPAC, Gossamer-Albatross, MIT Daedalus,

Reference:

[1] Daedalus URL https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Daedalus/daedalus.html

[2] History of Flight URL https://www.grc.nasa.gov/www/k-12/UEET/StudentSite/historyofflight.html
[3] Ornithopter by Leonardo da Vinci URL http://www.leonardo-da-vinci.net/ornithopter/
[4] History of human-powered aircraft, 2018. Wikipedia.
[5] Man powered flight advances, URL https://www.flightglobal.com/FlightPDFArchive/1985/1985%20-
%200744.PDF#navpanes=0&scrollbar=0&page=1&view=FitH,0
[6] Gossamer-Albatross URL http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/aircraft/Gossamer-Albatross.html
[7] MAN’S GREATEST FLIGHT URL http://web.mit.edu/drela/Public/web/hpa/SG_HPAG_daedalus.pdf
[8] Design: Conceptual design for human powered flight: a comparison of two design spaces - OpenLearn - Open
University OpenLearn. URL https://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/engineering-and-
technology/design-and-innovation/design/design/content-section-0
[9] James Marion McAvoy Jr., 1963. The Design and Development of a HUMAN-POWERED AIRPLANE.