The Gerhardt Cycleplane has been called the world's first successful

human-powered aircraft A human-powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered transport. Human-powered aircraft have been successfully flown over considerable distances. However, they are still primarily constructed ...

.Cornelisse, Diana G. ''Splendid Vision, Unswerving Purpose: Developing Air Power for the United States Air Force During the First Century of Powered Flight''. Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio: U.S. Air Force Publications, 2002. . It was designed by Dr. William Frederick Gerhardt (January 31, 1896 – March 15, 1984), and assembled by the staff of the Flight Test Section at

McCook Field McCook Field was an airfield and aviation experimentation station in Dayton, Ohio, United States. It was operated by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps and its successor the United States Army Air Service from 1917 to 1927. It was named f ...

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater ...

. It was flown in 1923.

History

The Gerhardt Cycleplane was developed in 1923 by Dr. William F. Gerhardt, head of the Aeronautical Engineering Department at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

. While working as an aeronautical engineer at McCook Field, Dr. Gerhardt designed the Cycleplane during his off-duty hours. The Cycleplane was one of many civilian aircraft projects developed at McCook Field by the base's engineers and test staff. The concept was to produce an aircraft capable of maintaining stable, level flight by human-power alone. The Cycleplane was constructed using private funds by members of the McCook Field Flight Test Section. Preliminary construction took place in secrecy in a barn loft. Officials from the base's Engineering Section later allowed Gerhardt and his crew to move into the McCook Field helicopter hangar for the aircraft's final assembly and storage. The Cycleplane had seven narrow vertically mounted wings, two attached to the small wood-and-fabric fuselage, and the other five stacked above it to a height of nearly 15 feet. A single pilot sat in an open cockpit near the wing roots where he pedaled a bicycle gear attached to a large two-bladed propeller.

Operation

The aircraft made its first flight in July 1923. During initiate flight tests, an automobile towed the Cyleplane into the air and released it. Afterward Gerhardt was able to maintain stable, level flights for short periods of time. The only human-powered takeoff of the Cycleplane was a short hop of with the craft rising .

News reel footage

The Gerhardt Cycleplane is perhaps best remembered, and to some extent made infamous, by a news reel film made in 1923 that shows the tall aircraft's seven wings collapsing while the aircraft was being pushed on the ground. The fuselage tipped over and the aircraft came to rest on its side. Today, this footage is often shown in compilations along with other ill-fated attempts at human flight from the pioneering days of aviation (most notably the

Pitts Sky Car The Pitts Sky Car was an unsuccessful aircraft designed for vertical take off, by inventor John W. Pitts of Detroit, Michigan. Pitts filed a United States Patent in 1924 for a propeller, "which will cause an immediate vertical lift of any ae ...

). The scene is also shown in some famous movies, most notably

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines ''Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines; Or, How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes'' is a 1965 British period comedy film that satirizes the early years of aviation. Directed and co-written by Ken Annakin, the fi ...

And Now for Something Completely Different ''And Now for Something Completely Different'' is a 1971 British sketch comedy film based on the television comedy series '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'' featuring sketches from the show's first two series. The title was taken from a catchphra ...

and

Airplane! ''Airplane!'' (alternatively titled ''Flying High!'') is a 1980 American parody film written and directed by the brothers David Zucker, David and Jerry Zucker, and Jim Abrahams in their directorial debuts, and produced by Jon Davison (film prod ...

Specifications

References

External links

Newsreel footage
at

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