1991 I wasn't building Baidarkas. Instead I flew over the Atlantic from Germany and then drove a car from New York City to Los Angeles and back, carrying my bicycle in the trunk and having a ride here and there (pic 4). The lesson learnt is that it is easy to carry a race bike with you on an airplane... I just disassembled everything and put the pieces in a solid box, the largest parts were the wheels and the bare naked frame. The next pics show three airplanes I have seen 1991 and I found it interesting they were an aluminum frame, covered with translucent skin.

 

Kayakers might call them:     Skin On Frame Aircraft    -     Here is the link into the NAS Museum 

 

 

Pic 1: Gossamer Condor

Designed by Dr. Paul MacCready and Dr. Peter Lissaman

 

Constructed of aluminum tubes, mylar plastic foil and stainless steel wire. Flown by Championship bicyclist and hang-glider enthusiast Bryan Allen. Gossamer Condor was the first really successful human powered airplane. Paul's team built 12 major prototypes and made over 400 test flights before reaching the final version that can be seen at the National Air and Space Museum.

 

Spars were 2in aluminum tubing with 0.024in wall thickness, reduced by chemical milling to 0.016in for the outer wing. Talk about optimization...

 

Pic 2: Gossamer Albatross

Weight: 70 pounds

 

This plane was pedaled across the English Channel in 1979.

There was more info on Paul Mc Cready's web site but that seems to be gone for some time now. So I have put an extract at the end of this page.

 

Cited from Paul's web site:

The fragile, 70 pound, Gossamer Albatross was pedaled 23 miles across the English Channel in 1979 to win the largest prize in aviation history. It demonstrates what can be done with low power, when new concepts of efficiency are unleashed by challenges not burdened by constraints from narrow rules or the need for commercial production. It is a catalyst for new perspectives that can lead to useful insights and products - such as the Pathfinder. And, incidentally, it was a tribute to the human spirit.

 

Pic 3: MIT Daedalus

 

...and to me the third is the neatest pedalled plane. Of course a little more expensive than the two previous ones...