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Aerovelo's Human-Powered Helicopter Wins $250,000 Sikorsky Prize
First time accepted submitter oritonic1 writes "Since 1980, several teams have tried (and failed) to build a human-powered helicopter that could win the elusive $250,000 Sikorsky prize. But a Canadian start-up, Aerovelo, has finally taken the crown with Atlas, a human-powered craft that managed to stay at least 10 feet in the air, for 60 seconds, within a 30'x30' area."
With the speed those rotors are turning, I don't think there'd be much in the way of ground effects generated.
Just an old helicopter mechanic tho, not an aeronautical engineer So I might be completely wrong..
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
Who cares? It's human powered. It hovered. The thing looks like it's escaped from a Laudanum dream. Give the cyclist a stovepipe hat and a suit and reclaim steampunk from the dorks that think gluing a couple of gears on a USB stick is something to be proud of.
Now go back to plane spotting and leave us alone with this awesome contraption.
So my question is, would it be feasible to generate this same level of thrust in a smaller area using the same amount of power?
No. The amount of thrust goes up linearly with the velocity of the airflow, but the amount of energy required to move that air goes up as the square of the velocity. So for the fixed amount of energy that a human can produce, you will get more thrust by it pushing down a large mass of air at a low velocity than a smaller amount of air at a high velocity.