With their human-powered aircraft ready for liftoff and a $250,000 award on their radar screen, a team of university engineering students may be positioned to raise their work to new heights.
The university’s chapter of the American Helicopter Society will host the first test flight of Gamera tomorrow — a helicopter that harnesses the energy from hand and foot pedals located in the pilot’s cockpit. The members’ goal: to be the first to capture the prestigious Sikorsky Prize by building and hovering a human-powered vehicle in the air for at least one minute and reach a height of three meters.
The award, established in 1980, has yet to be bestowed, as no one has ever completed this mission.
The team of more than 50 undergraduate and graduate students spent two years building the craft, and tomorrow’s test flight will mark another milestone: It will be the first human-powered helicopter to be piloted by a woman — life sciences graduate student Judy Wexler.
Graduate aerospace engineering student Brandon Bush, one of the student project managers, said for tomorrow’s flight, the team is focused on beating the record set by Yuri I, a 1994 Japanese human-powered helicopter that hovered for 19.4 seconds.
“If we got to 21 seconds, we would be overjoyed,” he said. “But the eventual overall goal, of course, is to get the Sikorsky Prize.”
Gamera features an X-shaped frame with a rotor on each of the four ends, and each rotor measures 42 feet in diameter — about the length of a bus. The helicopter is also designed to be lightweight, tipping the scales at about 210 pounds. Bush said the team’s most difficult task was making the chopper both strong and light.
“The challenge is to design a vehicle that is incredibly lightweight so we reduce the amount of lift that we have to create while making sure that the vehicle is strong enough,” he said. “We’ve been able to discover new ways of using lightweight material in interesting ways.”
Engineering graduate student Mor Gilad, another project manager, said while the project was at times frustrating, the final product has been worth the work.
“It’s been an interesting experience, and it’s been challenging,” she said. “There were times where the numbers were showing that we could do it, but we couldn’t see it happening, so it’s hard to believe that we’re here now sometimes.”
Aerospace engineering research assistant Vengalattore Nagaraj, who was a faculty advisor for the project, said he is confident Gamera will make history.
“The students came up with some very innovative ways of assembling this to make sure all the blades are as light and efficient as possible,” he said. “We’re very much looking forward to the test part of this project.”
Even though the team will not win a fiscal reward if they break the world record tomorrow, Bush said the engineering school will inevitably receive media attention for their achievement if it does. He said the team hopes the helicopter will eventually land in the National Air and Space Museum.
“Even though we don’t get any prize if we break the record, that’ll just be awesome,” he said. “If we’re able to get this world record, I feel like it’s worthy to be in the Air and Space Museum.”
The team will perform initial launches of the helicopter today in preparation for tomorrow’s test flight, and while members are excited to see the culmination of their work, many said they are still apprehensive.
“I feel good, but with any first flight test, there are always potential issues, and you never know about those issues until that flight test,” senior aerospace engineering major Eric Avadikian said. “But if this works, it’s a floating advertisement for the engineering school. There’s a lot of firsts that are going to go into this, and after seeing all the potential marketing and media, it’s a good advertisement for the school and to show everyone what aerospace is about at the University of Maryland.”
abutaleb at umdbk dot com
