Human-powered helicopter wins $250,000 Sikorsky prize

Back in October, I wrote a post about the race to win the Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition. To win the $250,000 Sikorsky prize, a human-powered helicopter must fly for 60 seconds, reach a momentary altitude of 3 meters, and stay within a 10 meter square. Last month, after 33 years of collective human effort, someone finally won the prize:

Wow, that helicopter is amazing! Popular Mechanics has more on the winning flight.

Reichert knew that the challenge was to keep supplying enough power through his legs to keep the craft from descending too quickly. On two previous flights in which he’d flirted with the three-meter mark, Reichert had descended too abruptly and fallen afoul of a phenomenon called vortex ring state, in which a helicopter essentially gets sucked down by its own downwash. Both times Atlas had been wrecked. This time, Reichert spent the balance of the flight easing the craft down gently to the ground. “You’re so focused on having the body do a very precise thing,” he told Pop Mech. “If you lay off the power even a little bit, or make any sharp control movement, you can crash.”

(via hn)

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