Human Powered Helicopter Aims To Break Records 87
An anonymous reader writes "A team of 50 from the University of Maryland has developed a human-powered helicopter, 'The Gamera,' which took two years to complete. The size of the helicopter is one third of a football field. The helicopter is made from light materials such as balsa, mylar, carbon fiber and foam and weighs about 210 pounds. The team aims to have it hover at least 3 meters off the ground."
How much excess power does vertical flight require (Score:4, Interesting)
...compared to just climbing up a ladder?
What I mean is the human body has easily enough power to raise itself up a vertical ladder or rock face so presumably a huge amount of this power must be lost just moving air around when that power is used inside a human powered helicopter. But how much power is wasted , or to put it another way , how much power put into the system is actually used to raise the mass of the helicopter?