© AeroVelo
They didn’t actually have to go far, only a few metres off the ground, but that was enough to make history. The AeroVelo Inc. team built a human powered helicopter.
In doing so and successfully meeting the requirements of an international contest, the team led by two former University of Toronto engineering graduates won the $250-thousand human powered helicopter prize.
Cameron Robertson is the co-founder of AeroVelo Inc.
ListenThe Igor I Sikorsky prize was established by the American Helicopter Society in 1980.
It required that a human powered helicopter should take off, and then hover at least 3 metres above the ground for 60 seconds while remaining in a 10 metre square zone. Where other international efforts had not been able to meet the challenge, the Canadian group were successful.
checks for signals from handlers. © AeroVelo
While Cameron Robertson was the chief structural engineer, the other co-founder of AeroVelo is Dr Todd Reichert. He was the chief aerodynamicist, and both shared in the multitude of roles necessary to bring the project to fruition, which as both will admit was an extremely challenging goal.
The helicopter called Atlas, is a unique and large structure almost 47 metres across, and just over 3.6 metres high, with the rotors sweeping an area of over 1,200 metres, with several kilometers of lines and thread, and yet the whole structure weighs just over 55kg.
rotors © AeroVelo
Cam Robertson notes that most of the prize money awarded will go to pay off expenses of development of “Atlas”, which was also funded through a variety of corporate sponsors, research funds, a kickstarter campaign and donations from the public, and volunteer time, energy, and expertise, much of it from the University of Toronto and engineering students.
The next project for the team is to work on breaking the human powered bicycle speed record which currently is held by Canadian Sam Whittingham at 133.28 km/h
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