World’s First Human Powered Helicopter Takes Flight

500 years after Leonardo do Vinci drew up plans for a human powered helicopter, a team of Canadian inventors has turned his idea into reality. In the process, they've won themselves $250,000.

The inventors, based at the University of Toronto, are collectively known as AeroVelo. Their groundbreaking aircraft is comprised of four ultra-light rotors, several reels of string and a bicycle. Built by hand, the total contraption is 47 metres in diameter, but weighs in at just 54 kilograms. It takes one person, pedalling at a relentless pace, to give the rotors enough power to achieve lift off.

'It's like you're biking along the street and someone came and just picked up your bike, now you're floating,' inventor doubling as cyclist-pilot Todd Reichert explained to the Canadian press. 'At the same time, you don't really have the time to appreciate that, because of everything's that's going on. As you spin your legs, you're spinning the rotors. It's very much an exercise in mental and physical control, at the same time as an all-out physical effort. This isn't something that you're going to commute to work in any time soon, but it's an exercise in really pushing the limits on what's physically possible, and what you can do with lightweight materials and really creative design.'

On June 13, AeroVelo became the winner of the Igor I. Sikorsky Competition. Established in 1980 by AHS (American Helicopter Society) International, the contest promised to reward the world's first human powered helicopter flight. The criteria were that the aircraft must be exclusively human powered, fly for at least 60 seconds, obtain a minimum altitude of three metres and hover over an area no bigger than 10 x 10 metres. It's taken 33 years for AHS International to find a winner. See how AeroVelo did it below.

[via AeroVelo]