Man Power - an update
NO MATTER how outlandish the challenge, there will always be a few people turned on by it. No matter how far-fetched the rules, the mere hint of a competition will excite those to whom "impossible" simply identifies a goal. And if the prize goes unclaimed for 15 years, despite a series of brilliantly organized attempts upon it, that only makes the chase more exciting. So it has been for the race to develop a man-powered airplane. Years of work to create a successful "ultra-light" airplane (one having less than 20 hp) in both the U.S. and Great Britain failed to result in anything halfway useful. To fly with so little power means very large wings, very low weight and thus wing loadings and power loadings far outside the sensible ranges. The silly things might fly well inside the Astrodome, but taking them outside where the winds blow is asking for trouble. The dream of flying with almost no power remained a topic for otherwise empty hours.
Zippy Sport
Many new model home-builts are of composite construction and more conventional configuration. Not so with E.C. Fischer's design. His Zippy Sport not only looks like an airplane, but it is built in the traditional way and is nearly as fast and as economical as the composites - and it can operate from short grass fields. Model airplanes keep getting bigger, and full-size airplanes keep getting smaller. In the first case, it's the pure challenge of building bigger, while in the latter, the cost of flying has to be kept under control with drastic measures.
Beautiful and Ugly Airplanes
TWO YEARS AGO we crawled out on a limb and dared you to whittle away at it. We knew we were taking a risk by choosing the all time most beautiful and most ugly aircraft, as there is a lot of personal feeling involved. Those of you who agreed with our choices were expected to remain silent, while those who disagreed with even one choice were expected to sound off. The reactions came thick and fast, though there was more agreement than we expected (unless the five who wrote with encouragement were the only ones among the almost 100,000 readers who weren't furious with our selections!). By and large, you seemed to realized that we were having fun.
Paris Air Show
AIR SHOWS come and air shows go even while their organizers wave banners proclaiming them to be the greatest, largest, and most important. Some play a small part in aviation lore, but most fade away before anyone has had a chance to take a close look. A very few become a part of aeronautical history and develop real personalities, like the giant EAA Fly-In at Oshkosh. Or like the spectacular Paris Air Show.
1984 Aerobatic World Championships
EIGHT HOURS in a noisy, chilly cargo plane. Three days of battling through low clouds and rain to get to the practice site, and another three struggling to get from there to the contest. By then, the glory of being one of the select few was starting to sound like sarcasm. But once on the airfield, friends from past contests flocked around to offer warm greetings and a flood of questions. While all this was deep in the unfamiliar countryside of southeastern Hungary, the 12th biennial World Aerobatics Championships (August 12-27, 1984) was full of sights and sounds reminiscent of past championships.
