Human-Powered Helicopter Wins the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize

Re:Human-Powered Helicopter Wins the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize by awongh on Friday July 12, 2013 @05:04PM (#6035187)

this is surprising that they don't try to get world class cyclists.

I'd like to point out the distinction from professionally paid road racers and olympic-level track (velodrome) riders. Road riders are always travelling, generally pretty busy and would probably be hard to get for a project like this, but more to the point, don't train for this kind of maximal wattage output.

But in fact, the world record for the 1km time trial is right below 1 minute right now (58.875).... I read somewhere on the internet that world class kilo riders are doing <900 avg. watts to do a kilo. Not to mention the fact that these guys aren't really bothered by much outside an olympic year.

otoh, canada doesn't have any of these caliber of riders, afaik.

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Re:Human-Powered Helicopter Wins the $250,000 Sikorsky Prize by stan_rogers on Saturday July 13, 2013 @12:51AM (#6036725)

We have had, including Curt Harnett, Jocelyn Lovell and (on the female side of things) Clara Hughes. The "thunderthighs" crowd does tend towards speed skating, though, which tends to be more accessible in a large country with few velodromes.

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