The pedal helicopter stayed in the air for 64 seconds

Test flight June 13, 2013

Financed by Kickstarter, two Canadians with the project of the pedal-operated Atlas helicopter did an incredible job . On July 11, 2013, the organizing committee was forced to admit that for the first time in 33 years, participants completely fulfilled the conditions of the Sikorsky contest.

According to the rules of the Igor Sikorsky contest , founded in 1980, to win, a participant must fulfill three requirements:

1. Flight duration is more than 60 s.
2. Flight altitude more than 3 m
3. The stability of the device during the flight within a radius of 10 m from the point of takeoff

The Atlas helicopter that is being shot down has successfully met these requirements, having held in the air for 64.11 seconds (world record, application to the Guinness Book of Records), reached a height of 3.3 meters and shifted not more than 9.8 meters from the take-off point.
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Thus, Todd Reichert and Cameron Robertson from the University of Toronto deservedly receive the main prize of the contest 250 thousand dollars, solving one of the most intractable problems in the history of aviation. The same audience, which believed in Canadians and funded the project AeroVelo Inc., also deserves the same respect. on Kickstarter.

For 18 months, Reichert and Robertson did a great job and made many changes to the initial design of the helicopter. The basic principle is to achieve sufficient lift by rotating the four screws. Traction on them is created due to the active pedaling of one wheel connected to the rotors of the screws by four Vectran belts. In the process of working on the machine, the individual parts of the design have been significantly improved. The final design has a weight of 55.1 kg, weight with a pilot - 130.1 kg. Power - 750 W (3 m). In reality, during the test flight, the cyclist-pilot and co-founder of AeroVelo startup Todd Reichert, in starting 12 seconds, developed an effort of about 1000 W, rising to a height of 3 meters, and then holding about 600 W in the remaining 52 seconds. Detailed layout by seconds, see the Excel table at the link below. By the way, according to the table of the output per kilogram of the weight of a cyclist, Todd Reichert can record himself in the national cycling elite of Canada.

Technical details of the design and characteristics of the flight (zip) - the document is an application for inclusion in the Guinness Book of Records.

Flight video June 13, 2013