Prizes are curious things. Most are recognitions of some event, but a few have been crafted to inspire people to do something very difficult - something that makes a fundamental difference.
Perhaps the most famous prize was the Longitude Prize - a reward by the British government in 1714 for a simple and accurate method to establish a ship’s longitude. Navigation had become extremely important. Latitude is easy to determine, but longitude was usually found by dead reckoning - an inherently inaccurate technique.
The prizes offered were significant ranging from £10,000 for a method that could determine longitude within 60 nautical miles, £15,000 for 40 nautical miles and £20,000 for 30 nautical miles. Additionally smaller amounts were offered for significant progress towards a goal and advances were offered for promising methods. The total prize money was £100,000 - roughly $25 million in today’s money.
This set off a major industry of inquiry and invention involving many of the great minds of the day. The history is fascinating - I recommend Dava Sobel’s Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time for a great read.
The trick to a great prize is to find something that is possible, but is still so difficult that little progress has been made. It is very easy to offer a target that is too easy or difficult. There should be enough of a reward - usually a mixture of tangible and intangible - to motivate enough people as the real progress often comes from people who are not directly involved in the field. John Harrison, the winner of the Longitude Prize, was a complete dark horse.
Some prizes have managed to capture long standing human dreams.
In 1959 the British Industrialist Henry Kremmer offered a series of prizes for human powered flight. The first was £50,000 for the first human-powered aircraft to fly a figure eight pattern around two points separated by a half mile. The starting and finishing points had to be at least ten feet above the ground. The second prize was £100,000 was to fly over the English Channel. A few other prizes were concerned with speed and maneuverability and I think some are still unclaimed.
I'm lucky enough to have known the principal character behind winning the first and second prizes.
Our bicycle club had a few people who were fascinated by slow flight - low speed aerodynamics. Hang gliding was becoming popular - at least for a few risk takers - and designs were advancing from simple (and sometimes dangerous) rogallo wings to much more sophisticated designs. Paul MacCready was a gifted aeronautical engineer who was making serious contributions to the applied science of low speed fluid dynamics. Paul had been a champion sailplane pilot and had some ideas on what it might take to win the prize. He determined the first two were possible and enlisted local help.
Paul and Peter Lissaman built the Gossamer Condor - actually there were three versions. I put a bit of labor into the first aircraft - the Pasadena version. The Shafter version was piloted by a very lightweight and strong hang glider pilot named Bryan Allen.1
In August of 1977 the Gossamer Condor - 70 pounds empty and a 96 foot wingspan - flying at about 10 mph with Bryan as its engine won the first prize. About two years later an improved aircraft - the Gossamer Albatross/Bryan Allen combination made it across the English Channel in a bit under three hours. Bryan, at about 140 pounds, weighed twice as much as the aircraft and had to supply about 250 watts - a third of a horsepower - to keep it flying.
A dream had been realized.
Paul was a fantastically interesting guy to chat with - one of those guys who was obviously interested in many things and topics that are important. One of those guys who connects dots. Spend the twenty minutes or so to watch his TED talk from 1998 where he talks about change.
In the talk, starting around minute 13, you’ll notice some small remotely piloted vehicles. It is important to recognize this talk was giving in 1998. These came from Paul’s company AeroVironment. The company is something of a Skunkworks that specialized in low speed aerodynamics and efficiency. Human powered flight was cracked there and that opened the way to solar powered flight and electric airplanes. They’ve explored very small aircraft for the military and have an interest in electric power automobiles. A neat place.
The unmanned aerial vehicles are becoming very important for the military and there are literally dozens of types. The small camera carrying aircraft are sometimes called first person view (FPV) aircraft and stunning advances have been made by advanced hobbyists. Check out what you can do for a few thousand dollars.
AeroVironment has a fantastic project called the hummingbird for DARPA that uses bird flight as a model. It weighs less than 20 grams (about 3/4 ounce) and currently has a mission endurance of nearly 10 minutes. We may soon have the ability to collect video and other intelligence at very close range with vehicles that are potentiall very inexpensive and difficult to detect.
At a larger scale there is a market for agriculture, utility, rescue and police FPV UAVs. The FAA will announce new rules for UAVs in January as current rules are very restrictive and were created with different technologies in mind. There may be a market - helicopters start at around $2 million and are expensive to maintain and operate while stable camera platforms with very low operating costs can be had in the $5k to $50k range. Aerovironment’s offering is the Qube and reportedly goes for about $40k.
Fully autonomous UAVs have been built and, along with FPV UAVs there are serious society and technology concerns. Some of us were wondering about the use of these devices in the Occupy movement - demonstrators, news and government. Advanced hobbyists could easily supply the demonstrators now, although it isn’t clear if flying them would be considered illegal or if permits are required.
Larger versions can have an endurance measured in the hours, can be autonomous and operated thousands of miles from a pilot when necessary and can carry payloads that go beyond surveillance - so called “active” platforms. Even the toy class vehicles are impressive.2
Once again we’re on the edge of what may be a major change in what is considered private.
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1 Bryan was an excellent rider and could easily drop anyone else in the club. You may wonder "why use a bike rider?" It turns out this is all about power to weight. Power generally increases as the square of an organism's size and weight with the cube. A really big guy can generate a lot of power, but there is a penalty as you have to build a larger airplane. You are looking for the sweet spot - the smallest possible (lightest and lowest air resistance) aircraft. Bike racers tend to have huge leg muscles and a lot of endurance - ideal engines. The sweet spot is for riders between about 120 and 140 pounds of weight. A shorter pilot with large legs would be ideal. There are some female riders who have flown this type of aircraft.
The other question is "why legs"? It turns out it is easy to make a very light and efficient transmission that can transmit the power from the motion legs generate on pedals to a propeller - something over 98% efficiency. It doesn't make sense to use the arms and the legs as power output is metabolically limited. As long as a person's legs are adequately trained the total output combining power from other muscles doesn't add anything - if you add the arms, power output from the legs decreases.
2 I've flown an AR Parrot Drone with an iPhone. It clearly takes more practice than I had given it and I crashed a few times, but this is a very impressive device for large indoor spaces or calm outdoor settings. A serious amount of technology for under $300.
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