Pioneers of Flight

Paul MacCready and his team at AeroVironment are the new Wright Brothers. They have made revolutionary inventions - the first human-powered plane (1977), the next one, flown across the English Channel (1979), and a number of unmanned airplanes. In 1981 their Solar Challenger carried its pilot 163 miles from Paris, France to England reaching a maximum altitude of 11,000 feet. One of the recent unmanned airplanes is the solar-powered Helios Prototype, which reached 96,863 feet last summer (two miles higher than any airplane had ever flown previously.)

Currently the AeroViroment team is working on making it possible for the Helios to fly indefinitely - they soon hope to set the record for the world’s longest flight. They are trying to make one of the world’s smallest planes (6 inch span), experimenting with a “micro-bat” that flies like an insect. We’ll tell the story of how they designed their unique planes and how they set these remarkable records. And we’ll follow them as they work on their latest inventions.