Bryan Allen flies Gossamer Albatross across the English Channel. (Don Monroe via Bryan Allen)
12 June 1979: The human-powered airplane, Gossamer Albatross, built by AeroVironment, Inc., of Simi Valley, California, flew across the English Channel from The Warrens, near Folkstone, Kent, England, to Cap Griz-Nez, France, 22.26 miles (35.82 kilometers) in 2 hours, 49 minutes.
The pilot/powerplant of Gossamer Albatross was long-distance bicyclist Bryan Lewis Allen. Allen pedaled at a constant 75 r.p.m. He established two Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record: Straight Distance, 35.82 kilometers (22.26 miles)¹ ; Duration, 2 hours, 49 minutes.²
Bryan Lewis and Paul MacCready, London, 16 May 1979. (Getty Images/United News/Popperfoto)Gossamer Albatross arrives at France, 12 June 1978. (AeroEnvironment, Inc.
The aircraft was designed by Paul Beattie MacCready, Jr., Ph.D., and weighed just 70 pounds (31.8 kilograms), empty.
The two-way radio link failed right after takeoff. Unexpected winds made the flight an hour longer than planned and Allen used all of his water. Batteries powering the instruments ran down. A chase boat was prepared for Allen to abort the flight, but he continued to France.
Bryan Lewis Allen was born 13 October 1952 at Tulare, California. He attended Tulare Union High School and then College of the Sequoias and California State University, Bakersfield, earning a bachelor of science degree. Allen is employed as a software engineer for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
Paul Beattie MacCready, Jr., was born 29 September 1925. He graduated from Yale University with a bachelor’s degree in physics, and then earned a master’s in physics from the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California. In 1952, Caltech awarded MacReady a doctorate in aeronautics.
The Robert J. Collier Trophy. (Smithsonian Institution, National Air and Space Museum)
Dr. MacReady received the Collier Trophy for 1979 from the National Aeronautic Association, “For the concept, design and construction of the Gossamer Albatross, which made the first man-powered flight across the English Channel—with special recognition to Bryan Allen, the pilot.”
Dr. Paul B. MacReady died 25 August 2007 at Pasadena, California.
The Gossamer Albatross is a human-powered high-wing canard monoplane constructed primarily of carbon fiber tubing, expanded polystyrene foam, Mylar® and Kevlar®, with wire bracing. A single pilot in a gondola provides power to a two-bladed fixed-pitch propeller, pedaling at 75 r.p.m., through a bicycle-type gear-reduction drive mechanism.
The airplane is 50 feet, 6 inches (15.392 meters) long, with a wingspan of 93 feet, 10 inches (28.600 meters) and overall height of 16 feet, 4 inches (4.978 meters). It has an empty weight of 70 pounds (31.8 kilograms), and a gross weight at takeoff of 215 pounds (97.5 kilograms). Its maximum speed is 15 miles per hour (24 kilometers per hour).
Three-view drawing of Gossamer Albatross. (Natural Flight Foundation)
Gossamer Albatross is in the collection of the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center, Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum.
Gossamer Albatross at the National Air and Space Museum. (NASM)
Sheila Scott on the wing of her Piper PA-23-250 Aztec D, Mythre, G-AYTO, 1971. (NASA)
11 June 1971: Sheila Scott O.B.E. (née Sheila Christine Hopkins) departed Nairobi, Kenya, on her third solo around-the-world flight. On this flight she used a new airplane, a twin-engine Piper PA-23-250 Aztec D which she named Mythre. It carried United Kingdom registration G-AYTO. Scott used a NASA navigation and locator communication system to constantly relay her position to a Nimbus weather satellite, and from there to a ground station.
Sheila Scott’s Piper PA-23-250 Aztec D, G-ATYO, Mythre, at Kidlington Airport, Oxfordshire, England, 1971. (Tim R. Badham)
Sheila Scott planned to not only fly around the world, but to fly from the Equator, over the North Pole, and back to the Equator again. She flew her Aztec from London, England, to Nairobi, Kenya, where she began the Equator–North Pole–Equator portion of the flight.
Scott took off from Nairobi on 11 June 1971 and headed northward to Khartoum, Sudan; Bengazi, Libya; Malta; arriving back at London on 21 June. From there she continued to Bodø, Norway; Andøya, Norway; Station Nord, Greenland; across the North Pole on 28 June; then southward to Barrow, Alaska; arriving at Anchorage, Alaska, on 3 July; San Francisco, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, on 11 July. She recrossed the Equator heading south to Canton Island. On 23 July, Mythre arrived at Nadi, Viti Levu, Fiji, and then flew on to Noumea, New Caledonia. After a stop at Townsville, Queensland, Scott arrived at Darwin, Northern Teritory, Australia, 1 August. From there she continued to Singapore; Madras, India; Karachi, Pakistan; Bahrain; Athens, Greece; and finally completed her journey at London on 4 August. The trip took 55 days.
During the circumnavigation, Sheila Scott set seven Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Records for Speed Over a Recognized Course: Andøya, Norway, to Station Nord, Greenland, 213.61 kilometers per hour (132.73 miles per hour) ¹; Nord to Barrow, Alaska, 183.73 km/h (114.16 mph) ²; San Francisco, California, to Honolulu, Hawaii, 236.56 km/h (146.99 mph) ³; Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, to London, England, 160.19 km/h (99.54mph). ⁴ Three of these records remain current. ⁵
Ms. Scott’s airplane was a 1971 Piper 23-250 Aztec (“Aztec D”), serial number 27-4568. The airplane was assigned the United Kingdom registration G-AYTO on 3 March 1971. The Aztec D was a six-place twin-engine light airplane based on the earlier PA-23-235 Apache, with a larger cabin and more powerful engines. It was of all-metal construction and had retractable tricycle landing gear. The Aztec D is 31 feet, 2.625 inches (9.516 meters) long with a wingspan of 37 feet, 1.750 inches (11.322 meters) and overall height of 10 feet, 3.875 inches (3.146 meters). The wing has 5° dihedral. The Aztec D has an empty weight of 3,042 pounds (1,380 kilograms) and a gross weight of 5,200 pounds (2,359 kilograms).
The Aztec D is powered by two air-cooled, fuel-injected, 541.511-cubic-inch-displacement (8.874 liter) AVCO Lycoming IO-540-C4B5 6-cylinder, horizontally-opposed, direct-drive engines. The -C4B5 has a compression ratio of 8.5:1 and a Maximum Continuous Power/Takeoff rating of 250 horsepower at 2,575 r.p.m. It weighs 374 pounds (170 kilograms). The engines drive two-bladed Hartzell constant-speed propellers with a diameter of 6 feet, 2 inches (1.880 meters).
The PA-23-250 Aztec D has a maximum structural cruising speed (VNO) of 172 knots (198 miles per hour/319 kilometers per hour) at 7,500 feet (2,286 meters) and maximum speed (VNE) of 216 knots 249 miles per hour (400 kilometers per hour). The service ceiling is 19,800 feet (6,035 meters). With standard fuel capacity of 144 gallons (545 liters) the airplane’s range is 1,055 miles (1,698 kilometers). Mythre carried an auxiliary fuel tank in the passenger cabin.
After the around-the-world flight, Scott returned Mythre to the Piper Aircraft Company at Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, for overhaul. Following Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972, the Piper factory was flooded to a depth of 16 feet (4.9 meters) and Scott’s airplane, along with many others and much of the tooling for aircraft manufacture, was destroyed.
“Sheila Scott over the Top—Piper Aztec,” by Paul Couper, Guild of Aviation Artists, 2008. 62 × 52 centimeters, oil/acrylic.
This painting is available from the Guild of Aviation Artists at:
Sheila Christine Hopkins was born 27 April 1922 at 12 Park Avenue, Worcester, Worcestershire, England. She was the daughter of Harold Reginald Hopkins and Edyth Mary Kenward Hopkins.
Miss Hopkins married Rupert Leamon Bellamy at Kensington, in late 1945. The marriage was dissolved in 1950.
Sheila Scott had been a nurse at Haslar Naval Hospital during World War II. She was an actress on the stage, in films and on television. In 1959 she followed a lifetime ambition and learned to fly. She owned or leased several airplanes which she entered in races or used to establish flight records.
Scott was a commercial pilot, rated in single and multi-engine airplanes, seaplanes and helicopters. She was a member of The Ninety-Nines, founding and serving as governor of the British branch. She was also a member of the Whirly-Girls and the International Association of Licensed Women Pilots.
Sheila Scott was the author of I Must Fly and On Top of the World (Barefoot With Wings in the United States).
Sheila Scott, O.B.E., died of cancer at Royal Marsden Hospital, Chelsea, London, 20 October 1988, at the age of 66 years. ¹
Sheila Scott, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, 12 March 1968. (AP/Worth)
Jean Boulet (1920–2011) (Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace)
6 June 1955: Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques du Sud-Est (SNCASE) Chief Test Pilot Jean Boulet set two Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Records for Altitude Without Payload when he flew the number two prototype SE.3130 Alouette II to an altitude of 8,209 meters (26,932 feet) near Buc, France.¹
SNCASE SE.3130-02, F-WHHF. An Aérospatiale AS350 Écureuil (A-Star) is approaching. (Airbus Helicopters)
FLIGHT and Aircraft Engineer briefly mentioned the flight:
“. . . On the same day S.N.C.A.S.E. claimed the world’s helicopter height record when the Alouette II, powered by a Turboméca Artouste, reached 27,100ft. The machine took off from Buc, near Paris, climbed for 42 min and landed at Montesson. The pilot was M. Jean Boulet.”
—FLIGHT and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER, No. 2420 Vol. 67. Friday, 10 June 1955, at Page 784
Powered by a Turboméca Artouste IIB1 turboshaft engine, the Alouette II was the first gas turbine helicopter to enter series production. SNCASE would become Aérospatiale, later, Eurocopter, and is now Airbus Helicopters.
The Alouette II is a 5-place light helicopter operated by a single pilot. The fuselage is 9.66 meters (31 feet, 9 inches) long. The three-bladed fully-articulated main rotor has a diameter of 10.20 meters (33 feet, 6 inches). It turns clockwise, as seen from above. (The advancing blade is on the left side of the helicopter.) Normal main rotor speed, NR, is 350–360 r.p.m. The two-blade anti-torque rotor is 1.81 meters (9 feet, 11.25 inches) in diameter and turns clockwise, as seen from the helicopter’s left side. (The advancing blade is below the helicopter.) It turns at 2,020 r.p.m.
Jean Boulet hovers the prototype SE.3130-01 Alouette II, F-WHHE, 12 March 1955. (Airbus Helicopters)
The SE.3130 has an empty weight of 895 kilograms (1,973 pounds) and a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 1,600 kilograms (3,527 pounds). The prototype was powered by one Turboméca Artouste IIB1 turboshaft engine which produced 400 horsepower, but was derated to 360 horsepower for installation in the Alouette II.
The helicopter has a cruise speed 175 kilometers per hour (109 miles per hour) at Sea Level, and a maximum speed of 185 kilometers per hour (115 miles per hour) at Sea Level. VNE is 195 kilometers per hour (121 miles per hour.)
The service ceiling is 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) at 1,500 kilograms (3,307 pounds) gross weight. The absolute ceiling is 4,500 meters (14,764 feet). At 1,350 kilograms (2,976 pounds) the Alouette II has a hover ceiling in ground effect, HIGE, of 3,400 meters (11,155 feet) and hover ceiling out of ground effect of 1,900 meters (6,234 feet). At 1,500 kilograms the Alouette II’s HIGE is 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) and HOGE is 600 meters (1,968 feet).
The SE.3130 Alouette was in production from 1956 until 1975. More than 1,300 of these helicopters were built.
SNCASE SE.3130-01 Alouette II F-WHHE prototype with test pilot Jean Boulet, 12 March 1955. (Airbus Helicopters)
Jean Boulet was born 16 November 1920, in Brunoy, southeast of Paris, France. He graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in 1940 and the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de l’aéronautique In 1942. As an officer of the Armée de l’Air (French Air Force) he was sent to the United States for training as a fighter pilot, and later as a helicopter pilot. In 1947 he joined Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques du Sud-Est (SNCASE) as an engineer and test pilot. As a test pilot he made the first flight in every helicopter produced by SNCASE, which would become Sud-Aviation and later Aérospatiale (then, Eurocopter, and now, Airbus Helicopters). He set 24 Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world records for speed, distance and altitude. While flying a SE 530 Mistral fighter, 23 January 1953, he entered an unrecoverable spin and became the first French pilot to escape from an aircraft by ejection seat during an actual emergency. Médaille de l’Aéronautique. In 1972 he was appointed Officier de la Légion d’honneur. He had more than 9,000 flight hours with over 8,000 hours in helicopters.
Jean Boulet died at Aix-en-Provence, 15 February 2011, at the age of 90.
Jackie Cochran set a third FAI speed record with a Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, 3 June 1964. (FAI)
3 June 1964: At Edwards Air Force Base in the high desert of southern California, Jackie Cochran set a third Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) speed record with the Lockheed F-104G Starfighter, 62-12222. She flew over a 500 kilometer (310.686 miles) closed course, without payload, averaging 1,814.37 kilometers per hour (1,127.397 miles per hour). ¹ She broke her own record, set over the same course in 1953 with an Orenda-powered Canadair Sabre Mk.3. ²
Jackie Cochran taxiing F-104G Starfighter 62-12222 at Edwards AFB. (Lockheed)
Designed by the legendary Kelly Johnson as a Mach 2 interceptor, the Starfighter was used as a fighter bomber by Germany. The F-104G was most-produced version of the Lockheed Starfighter. It had a strengthened fuselage and wings, with hardpoints for carrying bombs, missiles and additional fuel tanks. Built by Lockheed, they were also licensed for production by Canadair, Dornier, Fiat, Fokker, Messerschmitt and SABCA.
The F-104G is a single-seat, single engine fighter bomber, 54 feet 8 inches (16.662 meters) long with a wingspan of just 21 feet, 9 inches (6.629 meters) and overall height of 13 feet, 6 inches (4.115 meters). The empty weight is 14,000 pounds (6,350.3 kilograms) and loaded weight is 20,640 pounds (9,362.2 kilograms).
The F-104G was powered by a General Electric J79-GE-11A engine, a single-spool, axial-flow, afterburning turbojet, which used a 17-stage compressor section and 3-stage turbine. The J79-GE-11A is rated at 10,000 pounds of thrust (44.48 kilonewtons), and 15,800 pounds (70.28 kilonewtons) with afterburner. The engine is 17 feet, 4.0 inches (5.283 meters) long, 3 feet, 2.3 inches (0.973 meters) in diameter, and weighed 3,560 pounds (1,615 kilograms).
The maximum speed is 1,328 miles per hour (2,137.2 kilometers per hour). It has a combat radius of 420 miles (675.9 kilometers) or a ferry range of 1,630 miles (2,623.2 kilometers). The service ceiling is 50,000 feet (15,240 meters).
The Starfighter’s standard armament consists of a 20 mm General Electric M61A1 Vulcan 6-barreled Gatling gun, with 725 rounds of ammunition, and up to four AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air heat seeking missiles could be carried on the wingtips or under wing pylons. In place of missiles two wingtip fuel tanks and another two underwing tanks could be carried.
On NATO alert, the F-104G was armed with a B43 variable-yield nuclear bomb on the fuselage centerline hardpoint. The B43 could be set for explosive force between 170 kilotons and 1 megaton and was designed for high-speed, low-altitude, laydown delivery.
Cochran set three speed records with this F-104 in May and June 1964.³ Under the Military Assistance Program, the U.S. Air Force transferred it to the Republic of China Air Force, where it was assigned number 4322. It crashed 17 July 1981. The pilot, Yan Shau-kuen, ejected.
Lockheed F-104G Starfighter 62-12222 in ROCAF service as 4322.
Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of the Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3, No. 19200, on Rogers Dry Lake, May 1953. (J. R. Eyerman/LIFE Magazine)
3 June 1953: Concluding a series of speed and altitude records, Jackie Cochran set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Speed Over a 15-to-25 Kilometer Straight Course with an average speed of 1,067.68 kilometers per hour (663.43 miles per hour) while flying the Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3 No. 19200 at Edwards Air Force Base, California.¹
In the previous weeks, Jackie Cochran had flown the experimental Orenda-powered Sabre to world records over the 100 and 500 kilometer closed circuit and set an altitude record of 14,377 meters (47,169 feet).² During these flights, she became the first woman to “break the sound barrier” when the Sabre Mk. 3 exceeded Mach 1.
On the morning of 3 June, Cochran had attempted to set a new world record over the 3 kilometer straight course, which was flown at an altitude of 200 feet (61 meters). After two runs she determined that the Sabre Mk.3 would not exceed the previous record, and she abandoned the attempt.
In her autobiography, she wrote:
The plane was immediately refueled and the timing devices were shifted to the 15-kilometer course. That took about two hours and the roughness in the air was building up by the minute. A pass in each direction over the 15-kilometer course was needed for an average speed, as against four passes over the 3-kilometer course. I had fuel enough for four passes. The average of any two consecutive passes could be taken. The first pass from south to north was at a speed of 680 miles per hour. That result was relayed to me by air from my own Lodestar, which was parked on the lake bed near the judges’ equipment. The second pass from north to south, with the wind against me, was at a speed of 670 miles per hour. I determined to make a third pass, even though the plane had developed a bad left-wing down roll at high speed and was in consequence next to unmanageable over the level flight course and its approaches. On this third pass I decided to take a long dive at the conclusion of which I would level out before reaching the approach to the course. I did this but, on leveling out, the controls again “froze” on me with the plane determined to roll over to the left. I used both arms to pull on the controls and one knee as well for leverage but with no effect. Another second or two and the plane would have been over on its back and into the ground. I prevented this only by slowing it down. At the moment I pulled back on the power there was an automatic temporary compensation of the direction of the plane to the right of the course and, as a result, the timing camera did not catch me on that third pass. That ended the flight. I made a long turn for landing and “Chuck” Yeager, in his chase plane, closed in behind me. He instructed me to leave the throttle untouched as much as possible and to land on the lake bed. I wanted to put the plane down on the runway where the ground crew was waiting but “Chuck” insisted that I put it down on the lake bed where I could take a high-speed landing and a long roll. I took my oxygen mask off and smelled fuel in the cockpit. When the wheels touched ground and the roll had about stopped, “Chuck” told me to cut the throttle and switches and get out as quickly as possible because I had a bad fuel leak which he had seen from his plane. A stream of fuel about the size of one’s thumb was gushing out of the bottom of the main section of the left wing. . . .
—The Stars at Noon, by Jacqueline Cochran, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1954, Chapter XII, at Pages 232–233.
Major Charles E. Yeager, U.S. Air Force, and Jacqueline Cochran with the Canadair CL-13 Sabre Mk.3. Chuck Yeager and Jackie Cochran were the very best of friends. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)
The Canadair Sabre Mk.3 was a one-of-a-kind CL-13 Sabre (an F-86E Sabre manufactured by Canadair Ltd. under license from North American Aviation, Inc.) built to test the prototype Avro Canada Gas Turbine Division Orenda 3 engine. Modifications to the F-86 airframe were required to install the new, larger engine.
The Orenda 3 was an axial-flow turbojet engine with a 10-stage compressor, six combustion chambers and single-stage turbine. It produced 6,000 pounds of thrust (16.69 kilonewtons), a 15% improvement over the General Electric J47-GE-13 installed in the standard F-86E. The Orenda was 121.3 inches (3.081 meters) long, 42 inches (1.067 meters) in diameter and weighed 2,650 pounds (1,202 kilograms).
Canadair Ltd. was an aircraft manufacturer located at Cartierville, Montreal, Canada, owned by the American submarine builder, Electric Boat Company. Canadair also built licensed versions of the Douglas DC-4 (powered by Rolls-Royce Merlin engines) and the Lockheed T-33 two-place jet trainer. In 1954, the company became a part of General Dynamics.
After the speed and altitude records, No. 19200 was sent to North American Aviation for evaluation. Today, it is on static display outdoors at Wetaskiwin Regional General Airport (CEX3), Alberta, Canada.
Jackie Cochran in the cockpit of the Canadair Sabre Mk.3 No. 19200 on the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base. (LIFE Magazine via Jet Pilot Overseas)
¹ FAI Record File Number 8870
² FAI Record File Numbers 13039, 13040, 9075, 9076 and 12858
