Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 3: March 2014

Thinking Outside the Blocks PART V: SPEED-TO-FLY REALITY CHECK by DENNIS PAGEN D r. Paul MacCready was a creative thinker. Perhaps some pilots know about him through his successes designing man-powered aircraft. The Gossamer Condor and Gossamer Albatross won big-money prizes for being the first to negotiate a figure-eight course, and fly across the English Channel, respectively. All this activity took place in the late ‘70s. Dr. MacCready’s company, AeroVironment, went on to develop solar-powered aircraft, solar-powered cars, a life-size RC-controlled flapping pterodactyl and pilot-less aircraft. He also developed the fairings we see on the front of semis, thereby saving the country millions in fuel costs. He is the recipient of over 45 prestigious awards relating to his creative developments. The only award he didn’t get was the Nobel Prize, and that surely was an oversight on the part of the snowblinded Norwegian selection committee. Dr. MacCready had a connection to hang gliding because he was a sailplane pilot in Southern California interested in the early development of hang gliders. His sons learned to fly hang gliders; the chief pilot of his man-powered craft, Bryan Allen, was a hang glider pilot; and he employed pilots in his company. But it was in sailplanes that he did most of his flying and he contributed heavily to that sport. He, along with a few other pilots, was the first to explore 54 HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE big-wave flying, utilizing the monstrous Sierra wave in the Owens Valley. At one point in F

Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 3: March 2014 | Page 54