Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Pedal-Powered Airship



Gizmodo tells of this concept for a pedal-powered airship called Aeolus that can stay aloft for two weeks.

7 comments:

mordicai said...

That is pretty great, actually!

Erik Bongers said...

If a green economy (Obama's "Green Jobs") need to be boosted, and if this current crisis creates an opportunity to do so, realistic projects with current technology are the way to go. And I think that with a bit of creativity, they can go farther than we can imagine.

But I'm not talking about this airship.
Dreamy designs may wetten appetite, but if they are far from realistic, they may also keep alive the idea that a green future is utopian, or as the other site put it: "...out of Dinotopia."

Well, seems like a new english expresion can be added to James Gurney's legacy.
But what does 'out of Dinotopia' stand for?
'Bright future' or...'unrealistic'?

Unknown said...

Jim,

This reminds me of an old memory. Back in my Art Center days I took on a job house sitting Paul MacCready's home and kids. He was the inventor of the Gossamer Condor, the bicycle powered airplane that crossed the English Channel ( Or was that the Gossamer Albatross? ) . Anyway, quite the brainiac he was. And his kids were like little geniuses.....

Anonymous said...

Very cool

In the late 70's I was involved with Paul MacCready's class at ACCD in working on trial models of the Gossamer Albatross.
Great fun to be a part of such an endeavor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gossamer_Albatross

haha, just read the last comment
he had a lot of us in the ENV dept take part

James Gurney said...

Hi, Robin and Frank...You are so lucky! I'm a big fan of Mr. MacCready, not just his human powered aircraft but his radio controlled pterosaur. I didn't know he had a class at Art Center.

Erik, I'm not sure what they meant by "Dinotopian." Maybe some combination of impractical and pre-industrial. The pedal-powered sky galleys in the original Dinotopia book didn't work too well, even in Dinotopia.

Anonymous said...

I think he crashed that plane so often he needed spare parts. So why not get the students to help make history.

JarBlog said...

interesting picture..