Gossamer Odyssey

On June 12, 1979, Gossamer Albatross made aviation history by becoming the first pedal-powered aircraft to cross the English Channel. It was the culmination of years of work for the Gossamer team, led by pilot Bryan Allen and designer Dr. Paul D. MacCready, who had earlier won the £50,000 Kremer Prize for successfully flying the featherweight Gossamer Condor in a prescribed figure-8 pattern one half-mile long in August 1977. This prize was first offered in 1959 by British industrialist Henry Kremer (who had built Mosquito bombers during World War II) for a human-powered aircraft that could complete a prescribed course.
The story of these two incredible engineering feats, and the human drama which surrounds them, is an exciting one. Man's fascination with flight goes back hundreds, even thousands, of years, and Gossamer Odyssey reviews the fascinating, sometimes bizarre and often hilarious history of human-powered flight from the ill-fated Icarus of legend to the publication, late in the nineteenth century of Leonardo do Vinci's pioneer researches in aeronautics in the sixteenth century.
With a foreword by HRH Prince Charles. the book culminates in the record-shattering Gossamer Albatross flight, which begins a new chapter in the rich history of man-powered flight.


by Morton Grosser
Published by Michael Joseph 1981 1st edition. 298pp illustrated, index, appendices, bibliography. 16x23 fine, d/j very good, small tear at top of spine.






Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "new edition" "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.