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Gamera Team Flies Again, Featured on the Cover of the Wall Street JournalOn April 27-28, 2013, the University of Maryland’s record-setting human-powered helicopter team flew their Gamera helicopter in the Prince George's County Sports and Learning Complex in Landover, MD in an attempt to win a long-unreachable prize -- the $250,000 American Helicopter Society (AHS) Sikorsky Prize. The team had a flight of about 58 seconds, but in the end, the students were not able to achieve a "perfect" flight that would satisfy all of the American Helicopter Society Sikorsky Prize requirements with regard to flight duration, altitude, and hover space. The team experienced some damage to their helicopter blades on flight attempts that required repairs, which had an impact on what they were able to accomplish over the weekend. In August 2012, Team Gamera set an officially certified world record for duration (65.1 seconds) of a human powered helicopter with their Gamera II XR aircraft, and an unofficial world record for altitude (9 feet). Both flights were significant improvements over all previous human powered helicopter flights and garnered widespread national and international attention.
March 28, 2013 Prev Next |
