Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement

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MacCready, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement</title> <meta name="description" content="For centuries humans dreamed of flying on their own power. After the achievement of heavier-than-air flight at the beginning of the 20th century, most inventors and dreamers abandoned the idea of human-powered flight. Many dismissed it as impossible. One who did not was Paul MacCready. After half a lifetime of experimentation with gliders, MacCready answered a challenge issued by the Kremer Prize committee to produce a human-powered flying machine. The human-powered Gossamer Condor was only the most famous of Paul MacCready’s innovative air and land vehicles. His Gossamer Penguin and Solar Challenger were the first successful solar-powered aircraft. MacCready also drew on the energy of the sun to power a high-performance automobile, the Sunraycer. Paul MacCready overcame a childhood learning disability to earn a doctorate in aeronautical engineering and become a champion glider pilot. MacCready joined his lifelong interest in aviation with a mature passion for developing environmentally sound transportation technology. In addition to his experiments with solar power, MacCready’s firm AeroVironment, Inc. developed efficient battery-powered vehicles, such as the Impact sports car for General Motors. AeroVironment continues the legacy of Paul MacCready as a world leader in unmanned aircraft systems."/> <meta name="robots" content="index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1"/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="For centuries humans dreamed of flying on their own power. After the achievement of heavier-than-air flight at the beginning of the 20th century, most inventors and dreamers abandoned the idea of human-powered flight. Many dismissed it as impossible. One who did not was Paul MacCready. After half a lifetime of experimentation with gliders, MacCready answered a challenge issued by the Kremer Prize committee to produce a human-powered flying machine. The human-powered Gossamer Condor was only the most famous of Paul MacCready’s innovative air and land vehicles. His Gossamer Penguin and Solar Challenger were the first successful solar-powered aircraft. MacCready also drew on the energy of the sun to power a high-performance automobile, the Sunraycer. Paul MacCready overcame a childhood learning disability to earn a doctorate in aeronautical engineering and become a champion glider pilot. MacCready joined his lifelong interest in aviation with a mature passion for developing environmentally sound transportation technology. In addition to his experiments with solar power, MacCready’s firm AeroVironment, Inc. developed efficient battery-powered vehicles, such as the Impact sports car for General Motors. AeroVironment continues the legacy of Paul MacCready as a world leader in unmanned aircraft systems."/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="article:modified_time" content="2019-04-05T14:01:04+00:00"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-2.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:creator" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:site" content="@achievers1961"/> <meta name="twitter:label1" content="Written by"> <meta name="twitter:data1" content="Hugh Esten"> <script type="application/ld+json" class="yoast-schema-graph">{"@context":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/#organization","name":"Academy of Achievement","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/","sameAs":["https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.linkedin.com/company/american-academy-of-achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChe_87uh1H-NIMf3ndTjPFw","https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_Achievement","https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://twitter.com/achievers1961"],"logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/#logo","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/12.png","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Academy of Achievement"},"image":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/#logo"}},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/#website","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/","name":"Academy of Achievement","description":"A museum of living history","publisher":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/search/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-2.jpg","width":2800,"height":1120,"caption":"Dr. Paul B. MacCready"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/#webpage","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/","name":"Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D. | Academy of Achievement","isPartOf":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2019-03-26T20:15:32+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-05T14:01:04+00:00","description":"For centuries humans dreamed of flying on their own power. After the achievement of heavier-than-air flight at the beginning of the 20th century, most inventors and dreamers abandoned the idea of human-powered flight. Many dismissed it as impossible. One who did not was Paul MacCready. After half a lifetime of experimentation with gliders, MacCready answered a challenge issued by the Kremer Prize committee to produce a human-powered flying machine. The human-powered Gossamer Condor was only the most famous of Paul MacCready\u2019s innovative air and land vehicles. His Gossamer Penguin and Solar Challenger were the first successful solar-powered aircraft. MacCready also drew on the energy of the sun to power a high-performance automobile, the Sunraycer. Paul MacCready overcame a childhood learning disability to earn a doctorate in aeronautical engineering and become a champion glider pilot. MacCready joined his lifelong interest in aviation with a mature passion for developing environmentally sound transportation technology. In addition to his experiments with solar power, MacCready\u2019s firm AeroVironment, Inc. developed efficient battery-powered vehicles, such as the Impact sports car for General Motors. \u00a0AeroVironment continues the legacy of Paul MacCready as a world leader in unmanned aircraft systems.","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"]}]}]}</script>  <link rel="dns-prefetch" href="//web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://s.w.org/"/> <link rel="stylesheet" href="/web/20210119050908cs_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/dist/styles/main-fb4131a9f6.css"> <script src="/web/20210119050908js_/https://achievement.org/wp-includes/js/jquery/jquery.js?ver=1.12.4-wp" id="jquery-core-js"></script> <script async src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908js_/https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-2384096-1"></script> <script> window.dataLayer 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role="document"> <div class="content"> <main class="main"> <div class="feature-area__container"> <header class="feature-area feature-area--has-image ratio-container ratio-container--feature"> <figure class="feature-box"> <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image feature-area__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-2.jpg [(max-width:544px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-2-1400x560.jpg [(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-2.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Engineer of the Century</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-60848 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-aeronautical-engineer careers-aviation-engineer careers-engineer"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">There was always, in the history of aviation, an interest in human-powered flight because Leonardo da Vinci drew a man flying a machine and because, when you observe a bird, you wonder if man can emulate it.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Father of Human-Powered Flight</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> September 25, 1925 </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Death</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> August 28, 2007 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>Paul MacCready was born to well-to-do parents in New Haven, Connecticut. He experienced difficulties in school, of a kind that might now be diagnosed as dyslexia or another learning disability, but he enjoyed math and physics and gave extra attention to the subjects he found more difficult.  From an early age, he was an enthusiastic builder of model airplanes and gliders. Throughout his teens, he won competitions and set records with flying models of his own design. He began flying in his teens and received formal flight training in the U.S. Navy during World War II.</p> <figure id="attachment_60934" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60934" style="width: 2897px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-60934 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sidebyside-1940s-maccready.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-60934 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2897" height="996" data-sizes="(max-width: 2897px) 100vw, 2897px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sidebyside-1940s-maccready.jpg 2897w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sidebyside-1940s-maccready-380x131.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sidebyside-1940s-maccready-760x261.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sidebyside-1940s-maccready.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60934" class="wp-caption-text">1938: 13-year-old Paul MacCready with a gas-powered model airplane; 1940: MacCready, age 15, poses with his airplane “Topper,” which won trophies in two classes by swapping out two different-sized engines. (© Caltech)</figcaption></figure> <p>After the war, he earned a physics degree at Yale University and a doctorate in aeronautical engineering from California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. At the same time, he took up soaring — that is, flying sailplanes or gliders, as they are often called. He won U.S. soaring championships in 1948, 1949, and 1953, and represented the U.S. in international competition on four occasions. In 1956, he became the first American to win the world championship. He was the inventor of the MacCready Speed Ring, used by glider pilots the world over to select optimum flight speed.</p> <figure id="attachment_60881" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60881" style="width: 1255px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-60881 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1948-maccready.png"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-60881 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="1255" height="1534" data-sizes="(max-width: 1255px) 100vw, 1255px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1948-maccready.png 1255w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1948-maccready-311x380.png 311w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1948-maccready-622x760.png 622w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1948-maccready.png"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60881" class="wp-caption-text">1948: 22-year-old Paul MacCready, a graduate student at Caltech, flies the Orlik in a soaring contest over Torrey Pines, on the Southern California coast north of San Diego. A few months later he won the 15th National Soaring Championship held at Elmira, New York, with the same plane, a Polish-built sailplane with 49.5-foot wingspan. He wrote on the back of the photo: “It was much more fun without the canopy.” (Paul B. MacCready Papers/Caltech)</figcaption></figure> <p>MacCready founded his first company, Meteorology Research, Inc., in 1951, to pursue weather modification and atmospheric research. In 1971, he founded AeroVironment, Inc., in Monrovia, California. The company advises other businesses on environmental issues and wind power. It was also a pioneer of remote-controlled electric planes and unmanned aircraft systems.  First marketed as toys, AeroVironment’s unmanned aircraft systems soon became reconnaissance tools for the Department of Defense, early examples of what is known today as drone technology.</p> <figure id="attachment_60890" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60890" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60890 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1977-GettyImages-515114242.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60890 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1610" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1977-GettyImages-515114242.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1977-GettyImages-515114242-380x268.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1977-GettyImages-515114242-760x537.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1977-GettyImages-515114242.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60890" class="wp-caption-text">August 23, 1977: American hang glider pilot Bryan Allen flies the pedal-powered Gossamer Condor aircraft during a competition at Shafter Airport. The Gossamer Condor, designed by Dr. Paul MacCready, completed a figure-8 course over 1-1/4 miles while remaining at least 18 feet off the ground to win the Kremer Prize. (Bettman/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>A debt MacCready incurred helping a relative in business difficulties inspired him to pursue the prize offered by British millionaire Henry Kremer and the Royal Aeronautical Society to the designer who could create a human-powered flying machine. For 18 years, the prize had gone unclaimed. MacCready’s Gossamer Condor made history in 1977, when it flew a figure-eight course over a distance of 1.15 miles and became the first human-powered vehicle to achieve sustained, maneuverable flight.</p> <figure id="attachment_60896" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60896" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60896 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-WP-GettyImages-80896291-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60896 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1528" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-WP-GettyImages-80896291-1.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-WP-GettyImages-80896291-1-380x255.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-WP-GettyImages-80896291-1-760x509.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-WP-GettyImages-80896291-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60896" class="wp-caption-text">1979, England: Dr. Paul B. MacCready checks the polystyrene foam on the fuselage of his second human-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Albatross. The aircraft was constructed using a carbon fiber frame, with the ribs of the wings made with polystyrene; the entire structure was then wrapped in thin, transparent plastic. (Otis Imboden/Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>Kremer offered another prize of 100,000 British pounds for the first human-powered crossing of the English Channel. In 1979, the Condor’s successor, the Gossamer Albatross, flew across the Channel and won the second Kremer Prize. MacCready’s Bionic Bat won a third Kremer Prize for human-powered airspeed. The bat (short for battery) uses human power not only to power the aircraft directly but to continually recharge a battery, which stores power for continued flight.</p> <figure id="attachment_60904" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60904" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60904 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-80896003.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60904 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1533" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-80896003.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-80896003-380x256.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-80896003-760x511.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-80896003.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60904" class="wp-caption-text">June 12, 1979: Pilot Bryan Allen powers the Gossamer Albatross to the rehearsed speed of 75 revolutions per minute and soars above the English Channel en route to France. (Otis Imboden/National Geographic and Getty)</figcaption></figure> <p>In addition to these, MacCready created the Gossamer Penguin, the world’s first successful totally solar-powered airplane, and the Solar Challenger. Unlike MacCready’s previous creations, the Solar Challenger was not designed to win a competition, but to awaken the public to the possibilities of solar energy. In 1981, the Challenger flew from Paris, France to Canterbury, England, a distance of 163 miles, rising to an altitude of 11,000 feet.</p> <figure id="attachment_60909" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60909" style="width: 4212px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-60909 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/WP-gossamer-PENGUIN-GettyImages-516490134.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-60909 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="4212" height="2815" data-sizes="(max-width: 4212px) 100vw, 4212px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/WP-gossamer-PENGUIN-GettyImages-516490134.jpg 4212w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/WP-gossamer-PENGUIN-GettyImages-516490134-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/WP-gossamer-PENGUIN-GettyImages-516490134-760x508.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/WP-gossamer-PENGUIN-GettyImages-516490134.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60909" class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Paul MacCready and pilot Janice Brown. Following the Gossamer Albatross, MacCready took on an ambitious project designing a human-piloted, solar-powered aircraft. The Gossamer Penguin had a 71-foot wingspan and weighed 68 pounds without a pilot. The official project pilot was Janice Brown, a Bakersfield school teacher who weighed under 100 pounds and was a charter pilot with commercial, instrument, and glider ratings. She checked out at Shafter and made about 40 flights under battery and solar power there. On August 7, 1980, Brown flew a public demonstration of the aircraft at Dryden in which it went roughly 1.95 miles in 14 minutes and 21 seconds. This was significant as the first sustained flight of an aircraft relying solely on direct solar power rather than batteries. It provided designers with practical experience for developing a more advanced, solar-powered aircraft.</figcaption></figure> <p>In 1985, the Smithsonian Institution commissioned MacCready to build a life-size flying replica of the pterodactyl, a prehistoric flying reptile with a 36-foot wingspan. This remote-controlled flying model can be seen in the IMAX film <em>On the Wing.</em></p> <figure id="attachment_60920" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60920" style="width: 1992px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60920 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60920 lazyload" alt="" width="1992" height="1992" data-sizes="(max-width: 1992px) 100vw, 1992px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013.jpg 1992w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60920" class="wp-caption-text">Inventor and aeronautical engineer Dr. Paul B. MacCready standing with the solar-powered plane and car and a radio-controlled replica of a giant pterodactyl his company designed and built. In April 1984, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum initiated the project to build and fly the replica (called QN). One goal of the project is to fly the QN replica on the Mall in Washington, D.C., in June 1986 in conjunction with the opening of the National Air and Space Museum’s IMAX film <em>On the Wing</em>. The QN replica will play a significant role in the film, which explores the connections between nature’s fliers and aircraft. (Michael Salas/LIFE Images Collection)</figcaption></figure> <p>MacCready did not limit himself to the development of unique aircraft. His interest in environmentally sound technology led him to develop innovative surface vehicles as well. In 1987, he built the solar-powered Sunraycer, to compete in a race across Australia. In 1990, a collaboration with General Motors resulted in the Impact, an electric car that could accelerate from zero to 60 mph in eight seconds.</p> <figure id="attachment_60929" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60929" style="width: 4074px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60929 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60929 lazyload" alt="" width="4074" height="1440" data-sizes="(max-width: 4074px) 100vw, 4074px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS.jpg 4074w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS-380x134.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS-760x269.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60929" class="wp-caption-text">Paul MacCready in front of a wing section of the ultra-lightweight Helios Prototype flying wing at AeroVironment’s Design Development Center in Simi Valley, California. The bi-facial cells, manufactured by SunPower, Inc., of Sunnyvale, California, are among 64,000 solar cells which have been installed on the solar-powered aircraft to provide electricity to its 14 motors and operating systems. The Helios Prototype is the latest and largest example of a slow-flying ultralight flying wing designed for high-altitude, long-duration Earth science or telecommunications relay missions; On September 8, 1999, the remotely-piloted, electrically-powered Helios Prototype went aloft on its maiden low-altitude checkout flight over Rogers Dry Lake adjacent to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in the Southern California desert. The initial flight series was flown on battery power as a risk-reduction measure. In all, six flights were flown in the Helios Protoype’s initial development series. (NASA/Tom Tschida/Nick Galante)</figcaption></figure> <p>Paul MacCready’s contributions to flight technology were recognized formally in 1991 when he was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame, but MacCready and his collaborators at AeroVironment had not yet exhausted their ingenuity. In 1995, their remote-controlled, solar-powered Pathfinder reached an altitude of 50,500 feet. Since Paul MacCready’s passing in 2007, the enterprise he founded has continued to thrive.  Today, AeroVironment is the largest supplier of unmanned aircraft systems to the Pentagon and to America’s allies; they are also used in law enforcement, border control, and emergency response. Whatever shape the air and surface vehicles of the future may take, it is certain they will be marked by the singular genius of Paul MacCready.</p> </body></html> <div class="clearfix"> <figure class="achiever__video-block"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/npfgGhgNkVg?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Paul_MacCready_Gossamer_Albatross.00_01_38_10.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Paul_MacCready_Gossamer_Albatross.00_01_38_10.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video__copy m-t-1"> <p>June 25, 1979: Paul MacCready’s Gossamer Albatross flies across the English Channel.</p> </figcaption> </figure> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 1982 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.engineer">Engineer</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.aeronautical-engineer">Aeronautical Engineer</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.aviation-engineer">Aviation Engineer</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> September 25, 1925 </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Death</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> August 28, 2007 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p>For centuries humans dreamed of flying on their own power. After the achievement of heavier-than-air flight at the beginning of the 20th century, most inventors and dreamers abandoned the idea of human-powered flight. Many dismissed it as impossible. One who did not was Paul MacCready. After half a lifetime of experimentation with gliders, MacCready answered a challenge issued by the Kremer Prize committee to produce a human-powered flying machine.</p> <p>The human-powered Gossamer Condor was only the most famous of Paul MacCready’s innovative air and land vehicles. His Gossamer Penguin and Solar Challenger were the first successful solar-powered aircraft. MacCready also drew on the energy of the sun to power a high-performance automobile, the Sunraycer.</p> <p>Paul MacCready overcame a childhood learning disability to earn a doctorate in aeronautical engineering and become a champion glider pilot. MacCready joined his lifelong interest in aviation with a mature passion for developing environmentally sound transportation technology. In addition to his experiments with solar power, MacCready’s firm AeroVironment, Inc. developed efficient battery-powered vehicles, such as the Impact sports car for General Motors. AeroVironment continues the legacy of Paul MacCready as a world leader in unmanned aircraft systems.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/5Aja8_hZXUY?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_59_21_03.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_59_21_03.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Father of Human-Powered Flight</h2> <div class="sans-2">Pasadena, California</div> <div class="sans-2">January 12, 1991</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How did you come to address the challenge of human-powered flight? Where did this interest come from?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: There was always, in the history of aviation, an interest in human-powered flight because Leonardo da Vinci drew a man flying a machine and because, when you observe a bird, you wonder if man can emulate it. When the Wright brothers began engine-powered flight, people realized that human-powered flight really was pretty impractical. A human puts out about a third of a horsepower, but engines put out ten horsepower, 100 horsepower, 1,000 horsepower. Eventually, airplanes achieved all sorts of great goals with those engines, so human-powered flight was just forgotten. But as an old goal, it still lingered in people’s minds. There were some tiny prizes put up for it in the ‘30s which weren’t won. And then…</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/NgdhkKNRJLA?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_35_23_03.Still006-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_35_23_03.Still006-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>A group in England called the Manpowered Aircraft Group assembled itself and began working on it on a very low level, hobby basis. One of the stalwarts in that group was the head of one of the companies that the British industrialist Henry Kremer had. He would ask this person how that program was coming. One time after one of the divisions of his empire had been sold and Kremer was having a three-martini lunch, he asked how it was going. It wasn’t going very well. “Well, how can you get it moving?” “Well, maybe a prize would be a good idea.” And Kremer said, “Well, I’ll put up a prize.” It was just done like that. Kremer was pretty far-sighted and was an enthusiast for physical conditioning, but I don’t think it had huge deliberation in it. It really was a very important event to take place, to put up a prize which eventually became a very significant prize.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/p2IOsyFm214?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.01_18_55_21.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.01_18_55_21.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>All of us have known power — big power, available cheaply — our whole lives. You always have a 100-horsepower or 200-horsepower car and all the heat you need in your house, and so on. It’s hard to realize that just 200 years ago, all our ancestors were getting by for transportation on biological power — walk, run, whatever, use a horse. Then occasionally, you’d use windmills for some things, and water power, and there’d be sailboats. Basically, we got by on those puny powers, and now we can’t even conceive of how we would do it. So here is this Britisher who, in effect, said, “Go back to the power that we were using — but use modern technology — and fly. Fly on a third of a horsepower.” That was an amazing challenge of great value — to think of biology and nature at the same time that we are thinking of technology, and also to think about how little energy and materials we could get by with. This challenge was not just another ordinary one; it had great value. We can see that challenge produced our — and the significant prize — produced our Gossamer Condor, without which there would not have been the Gossamer Albatross, without which there would not have been the Solar Challenger or the Pterodactyl. Without all of these, there wouldn’t have been the Sunraycer, the solar-powered car that won the race across Australia in ‘87. And without that, there would not have been the Impact battery-powered car that now is going into mass production. As you look back in roots, you realize that was a pretty important lunch that took place many, many decades ago.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_60990" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-60990" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-60990 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-526279993.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-60990 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="3428" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-526279993.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-526279993-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-526279993-505x760.jpg 505w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-526279993.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-60990" class="wp-caption-text">May 16, 1979: Hang glider pilot Bryan Allen (left) and aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready beside the human-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Albatross, in London. The Gossamer Albatross went on to complete a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the £100,000 Kremer Prize on June 12, 1979. (United News and Popperfoto)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>How about you? What was it about this challenge of human-powered flight that fascinated you?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: What was really fascinating about human-powered flight was there was a £50,000 prize for achieving it. That’s the sole reason that I got into it. A subsequent project of human-powered flight was the Gossamer Albatross flight across the Channel. That prize was £100,000. That was the glorious motive for doing that project. But afterwards, the programs were done for somewhat more altruistic reasons, and in a rather unplanned way, one thing led to another. We couldn’t have anticipated what happened. They all have tended to feature light weight, pushing the frontier, low power, electric power, solar power, and human power. There was a lot of random influence in the projects, but it all began because of prize money.</p> <p><strong>You had a particular reason you were interested in that prize money. What was it?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/LpfkzQhv5Sg?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0&start=339&end=437&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_59_21_03.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_59_21_03.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Paul MacCready: I had guaranteed a relative’s loan at a bank for roughly $100,000 for him to start a company, which didn’t succeed. He couldn’t pay the money back, and as guarantor of the note, I was obligated to pay the money back. Because of some peculiar circumstances, where I thought I had some liquid assets around, they had evaporated while all this was going on. So I was stuck with the debt, which was rather annoying. There wasn’t anything I could do about it. I didn’t have any special plans on what to do. I couldn’t figure out how to handle it. I was going on this vacation trip in the summer of 1976, having time to just daydream, let the mind dawdle around on what it wanted to think about — nibbling away on little old memories and new thoughts and making connections that I otherwise would not have made. I did recall, with no special emphasis, this £50,000 prize that Henry Kremer had put up 17 years earlier. And then, one day I happened to notice that at that time the pound was worth just two dollars. And suddenly, this great light bulb just glowed over my head — the prize was $100,000! My debt was $100,000! There just may be some interesting connection between these two. My interest in human-powered flight suddenly zoomed up to high level. I fussed away at it, and eventually it worked.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_61002" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-61002" style="width: 3039px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-61002 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-gossamer-penguin-July-25-1979-BOB-RHINE-ECN-13413.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-61002 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="3039" height="2439" data-sizes="(max-width: 3039px) 100vw, 3039px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-gossamer-penguin-July-25-1979-BOB-RHINE-ECN-13413.jpg 3039w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-gossamer-penguin-July-25-1979-BOB-RHINE-ECN-13413-380x305.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-gossamer-penguin-July-25-1979-BOB-RHINE-ECN-13413-760x610.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-gossamer-penguin-July-25-1979-BOB-RHINE-ECN-13413.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-61002" class="wp-caption-text">July 25, 1979: Janice Brown flying the Gossamer Penguin on Rogers Dry Lake using a combination of solar and battery power. The Gossamer Penguin was a solar-powered experimental aircraft created by Paul MacCready’s AeroVironment. On August 7, 1980, Janice Brown flew the Gossamer Penguin in full view of a crowd gathered on the Edwards dry lakebed at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in California. Janice flew the Penguin almost 3.5 km that day in 14 minutes, 21 seconds. This was the first sustained flight of a solar-powered aircraft and the longest Penguin flight since development had started on the aircraft two years earlier. (Photo by Bob Rhine/NASA)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>It’s fascinating to think how the challenge that Kremer thought about, and the prize money attached to meeting that challenge, and your financial need, coincided. What was the next step?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/zCYaDaEvIx8?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.01_18_55_21.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.01_18_55_21.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Paul MacCready: Well, first of all, I realize, looking back, that for me, right at that time, with my particular skills, strengths, and weaknesses — which all helped with it — it was almost as though the Kremer Prize was designed for me. At that stage, there wasn’t anybody in the world as well-situated to handle it — with knowledge of aerodynamics but no knowledge of structure, so I could more flexibly deal with new methods there. Living in Southern California, where all the aerospace technologies are around, if you need some tubing, you just go buy it. If you need it chemically-milled, you take it someplace else, they chemically mill it. You couldn’t do this in the middle of some other state in the United States or some other country — and where you can get a good airport and an empty hangar if you hunt around for it. And the weather is gentle. And so many things — it almost seemed like this was the perfect spot to win that prize.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Chances combined to create the interest in you, and in the perfect spot, to meet this challenge. What was the next step for you?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Every time I came up with an idea, it turned out it was just the same as the teams in England, rather elegant groups that made rather sophisticated aircraft that didn’t come close to winning the prize. Their lack of success demonstrated that those approaches really were not very good. Plus, I couldn’t aspire to make such complex, elegant aircraft as they had made.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/dLJeR0nw9QQ?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_42_45_24.Still008-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_42_45_24.Still008-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/vision/">Vision</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>In this case, what I was doing was just a fun little scientific hobby. I realized on a vacation trip that you could figure out the flight speed and the turning radius of birds flying around in circles — just soaring in circles like you see a hawk do or a turkey vulture — by noting the time to do a turn and estimating the bank angle at which the bird was operating. From those two numbers, you can immediately calculate the flight speed and turning radius, and you can do it with essentially no tools, just your wristwatch and estimating the bank angle. You have to write a formula and use a little calculator for it. So we were doing this on this vacation trip and comparing the black vulture with the turkey vulture, which flies slower, in smaller thermals, and can take off earlier in the day when the thermals are smaller.</p> <p>We began to be more interested in how one bird compares with the other, and I found myself thinking about “How does this compare with a hang glider? Can it fly at the same turning radius? What about sailplanes? How much power does each take? What about the power per pound?” I was doing the scaling laws for all of these different flight devices, natural and artificial, in my mind. The scaling laws are pretty simple. While working on that, I thought back about human-powered flight and realized, why yes, there was a very simple, straightforward way of doing it, which is merely that you can take any airplane conceptually — keep the weight the same, but let the size just get bigger and bigger and bigger in all dimensions, and the power goes down. And conceptually, you can make it big enough so it can get by on the tiny power that a person puts out.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><figure id="attachment_61010" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-61010" style="width: 2244px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-61010 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1981-wp-U2036669A-1.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-61010 lazyload" alt="" width="2244" height="3438" data-sizes="(max-width: 2244px) 100vw, 2244px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1981-wp-U2036669A-1.jpg 2244w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1981-wp-U2036669A-1-248x380.jpg 248w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1981-wp-U2036669A-1-496x760.jpg 496w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1981-wp-U2036669A-1.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-61010" class="wp-caption-text">March 29, 1981: Paul MacCready working on the Solar Challenger. From Gossamer Penguin, MacCready developed Solar Challenger – which, in 1981, set the world record for the highest, farthest, and longest solar-powered manned flight, with a 260km, 5hr 23min trip from Pontoise–Cormeilles Aerodrome, across the Channel to RAF Manston. Built as a demonstrator for solar power and advanced composite structural materials, the airframe and solar propulsion system weighed only 93kg and was designed for a 9G ultimate load factor. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)</figcaption></figure> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/urcdJywRalw?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.01_21_48_02.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.01_21_48_02.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>When you work out numbers, you realize if you take a hang glider, sort of a 30-foot span, and keep the weight the same — sort of 50 pounds, 70 pounds, something like that — and swell it up to a 90-foot span, and the chord, increase also, the power goes down to one-third of what it was, and that brings it down to about point-four horsepower, which a person — a good athlete — can put out for some number of minutes. You didn’t need an elegant sailplane-like aircraft. You could have an ugly, dirty-looking hang glider-type plane, quick to build, as long as you made it giant without the weight going up.</p> <p>That was the basic idea. There is one other idea that was essential, which was how to make something that big without the weight going up. The gimmick was that you did not need a structural safety margin that you need in a regular hang glider, which is going to fly at high altitudes, so if it breaks, somebody is going to get hurt. This was only going to fly at ten-feet altitude at ten miles an hour. If it broke, who cared? Nobody would get hurt at all. You could have it just on the very edge of breaking — no safety margin at all. Instead of cables, you use thin piano wire as a structural element. And so, with that idea and the basic idea of “large and light,” the problem was solved. I knew there would be a bunch of grunt work, engineering, to actually win the prize, but the idea that assured that the prize could be won was then in possession.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p>It had to be large and light, larger and lighter than any plane had been made until then.  It ended up 96-foot span and 50 pounds, occasionally up to 70 pounds, which is unprecedented in the way people have made airplanes.</p> <p>Some airliners — I forget — the DC-9, 727, they are around that wingspan.  But then the 747 would be sort of a 150-foot span.  So it’s smaller than a jumbo jet, but it’s actually larger than some of the smaller transports that you see in the sky — but a lot lighter by a good bit and a lot slower.  It doesn’t carry many people, and the people it carries have to work pretty hard.</p> <p><strong>When </strong><strong>you started building the Gossamer Condor, did it turn out to be a bigger task than you anticipated?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Oh, yes. Every task I get involved in is always a lot bigger than I expect.  I naively think we just do this and that and it will work.  But it never happens.  People who work with me sometimes double the time estimates, other times they increase them by a factor of ten; the latter are usually more correct.  We were entering such a new realm of flight.  We couldn’t predict what was going on.  Looking back, we did it just right, as quickly as we could.  After some early tests and models and a bunch of calculations, we built a first version without even putting a propeller on it, just to see if it would fly and about how much power it took to keep it up.  Then we added a propeller and did a lot of tests.  It was pretty crummy, very crude and not efficient, bad stability and control, and so on.  But because we could rush it out and do tests with it, we began getting good insights about all its difficulties and then were able to do a lot of work to come up with the more elegant devices that followed.</p> <figure id="attachment_61014" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-61014" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-61014 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-1983-RR032437.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-61014 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-1983-RR032437.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-1983-RR032437-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-1983-RR032437-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-1983-RR032437.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-61014" class="wp-caption-text">March 1983: Paul MacCready holds a model of Gossamer Albatross, an aircraft designed to fly long distances with a human as the only power source, at his Simi Valley-based company, AeroVironment. (© Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>T</strong><strong>here was one problem that you were able to solve by going back to something that the Wright brothers had learned, wasn’t there?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/4JVyH-bQCHI?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_29_11_16.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_29_11_16.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Paul MacCready: What we really went back to is what birds have been doing for a hundred million years, so who thought of it first is a question. One of the blind alleys that we went up in this development of the Gossamer Condor was — I was picturing that because the flight was so slow and the turns were fairly large, you could just have a wing that always had the same shape and you could gently get around the turn. But when we were having huge problems with the turn and with other aspects of stability and control, I finally sat down and really did some calculations and realized the huge increase of angle of the tack you get in the one wing versus the other wing and that it was necessary — in order to maintain lift —well, a big change of speed, I should say — in order to maintain lift, you have to change the angle of the wing. You just plain have to twist the wing, and when you finally began twisting the wing, it suddenly began working pretty well. But there were a lot of other problems to the stability and control part — but the need to wing twist was important, and I should have figured that out ahead of time and incorporated it right into the very first vehicle. But because I have mental blinders like everybody else, I went off on what I thought was a simpler approach. I tried to do everything on this project as simply as possible, assuming that the simple answer would work. You knew it wouldn’t always, but that saves you a lot of time so when you get to a troublesome thing, you can then spend some time with it.</p> <p>We figured that one out. Then, by some ingenious tests with a little model that only took an hour to build, pushed around in a swimming pool — just a couple of slabs of balsa wood — we got some final insights about what some computer programs were trying to tell us. The computer programs, a rather elegant technology, were correct, but they didn’t give you any insight. This swimming pool event did give us the insight, and we figured out how to complete all the stability and control problems and came up with a final version that worked.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body data-rsssl="1"><p><strong>Can you tell us about the day that it finally worked, when you had your successful flight with the Gossamer Condor?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: We were getting longer flights each day as we would continue cleaning up, tightening the mylar, getting things so they didn’t ripple as much.  Also, getting the pilot more accustomed to it.  Finally, he did a flight that almost completed the one-mile figure-eight.  You have to do a figure-eight flight around pylons half a mile apart.  At the very beginning and at the end, you have to go over a ten-foot marker.  You can’t have a ground-effect machine that’s only a millimeter off the ground.  He had done a flight of almost eight minutes but had not been able to get up over that last hurdle.  So it was obvious that the next time the weather was right, the flight would succeed.  Then we got a forecast of appropriate weather and were able to get the official observer out.  We all got out there.  I don’t remember whether we went out early that morning — very early because it’s a two-and-a-half hour drive from here to get to the airport — or whether we went out the previous night.  I suspect it was the previous night.  We got everything together, and the flight succeeded on that occasion, just barely.</p> <figure id="attachment_61024" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-61024" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-61024 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908im_/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-2003-helios-prototype-ED03-0152-3.jpg"></noscript><img loading="lazy" class="wp-image-61024 size-full lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1529" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-2003-helios-prototype-ED03-0152-3.jpg 2280w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-2003-helios-prototype-ED03-0152-3-380x255.jpg 380w, /web/20210119050908im_/https://achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-2003-helios-prototype-ED03-0152-3-760x510.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908/https://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-2003-helios-prototype-ED03-0152-3.jpg"><figcaption id="caption-attachment-61024" class="wp-caption-text">June 7, 2003: NASA’S Helios Prototype electrically-powered flying wing over the Hawaiian island of Kauai. On August 13, 2001, the Helios Prototype, piloted remotely by Greg Kendall, reached an altitude of 96,863 feet (29,524 m), a world record for sustained horizontal flight by a winged aircraft. The altitude reached was more than 11,000 feet (3,400 m) — or more than 2 miles (3.2 km) — above the previous altitude record for sustained flight by a winged aircraft. In addition, the aircraft spent more than 40 minutes above 96,000 feet (29,000 m). (Carla Thomas)</figcaption></figure> <p><strong>How long was it before you started thinking about the next project?</strong></p> </body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yj0XapwH_YM?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_11_42_09.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_11_42_09.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Paul MacCready: After that prize was won, this prize of Henry Kremer’s that had stood for 18 years no longer existed, and so he didn’t have a prize out. About four months later or so, he put up the new prize for a flight across the English Channel, which is a 22-mile flight across a dangerous body of water. I think he thought it was probably going to take another 18 years for somebody to do that because it was so much longer than this first one-mile flight. We realized that if we just cleaned up the Condor and made a plane that was more elegantly fashioned — a more accurately contoured wing, many more ribs, better foam to help contour the wing, and so on, focused on structure, didn’t pay any new attention to aerodynamics because that had all been solved in the previous one — this new plane, which we would call the Gossamer Albatross, could get by on maybe a third less power. A bicyclist can put out a little less power for a much longer period of time. And so Bryan Allen, our pilot, should be able to fly this new plane for literally hours if we got it properly all cleaned up. So we built it. I guess it was built by mid-spring of the next year.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>We were using carbon fiber composite tubes instead of aluminum, and lots of very lightweight foam ribs, and so on — a lot of sort of space-age materials to make a better vehicle. It flew right from the beginning, doing just what it should. But we had all the usual accidents and control problems. It was obvious this was capable of winning the prize, but it was also becoming obvious that this was going to be a big project: to build back-up airplanes, to test them, get them to break in controlled circumstances rather than out over the Channel, get them all to England somehow, wait around for weather, do more tests there, rent boats, and so on. So we sought sponsorship. The DuPont Company, whose materials we were using, agreed to sponsor it. And the project proceeded.</p> <p><strong>H</strong><strong>ow exciting was the actual flight across the Channel, both for you and for the pilot?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/aY2c038relo?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_39_41_09.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_39_41_09.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Paul MacCready: Well, the event was perhaps one of the most exciting things certainly that I will ever live through or that any of the people involved with it would live through, but it doesn’t mean it’s something we’d want to go do again. Maybe the pilot was tired, but the 100 other people who were all in boats going along with him, trying to use psychokinesis to lift him up mentally, were certainly exhausted by the time the thing was over. The big pressure was organizing this thing. You had to predict the previous day, by three o’clock, whether you were going to do a flight the next day. And none of the weather forecasts you got ever agreed — or ever agreed with the weather that subsequently materialized. It’s a very difficult area to get good weather forecasts. I’d actually have to ride over on a bike — and a broken foot at the time and a cast on — and I’d have to ride over from the airport to a pay phone and find the weather forecasts and then turn on, or not turn on, the whole project. And once the project was turned on, which it was for this day, about 100 people, journalist types, were converging from all over Europe — and all the team, the DuPont people. It was about like operating D-Day out of a pay telephone booth. It had pressure, and the usual pressures: we were running out of money and the weather wasn’t right. But finally, we thought, “Okay, let’s try it.” There was really zero chance of it working right the first time, and the first plane was considered sort of a sacrificial plane. We didn’t know what was going to go wrong, but we knew some of the 100 things that could go wrong would go wrong. So we assembled the plane on a thing called The Warrens, where one of the early tunnels was starting to be dug from England to France. It’s an acre of concrete just in the right place for us.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>So once it got it up in the air over the Channel, then what happened?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Well, it was up in the air and everything was going fine. There was radio communication both ways. I was in a boat about 1,500 feet in front of the plane, doing navigating with radar and figuring out where we were, where all the boats in the Channel were, and where they were going to be by the time we reached them. You couldn’t cross in front of one of the big supertankers — in case you crashed, they can’t turn — and you can’t be within two miles behind them because they leave turbulence in the air that would be too much for the plane. So maybe 20 minutes ahead of time, you have to know where you are going to be, where they are going to be, and make little variations in the course. The whole thing was quite a strain.</p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/engMjfi54xE?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_03_51_24.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_03_51_24.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>As to Bryan, we only felt that he could keep the plane up for two hours. Prior tests had shown his stamina at the amount of power the plane required. We only gave him enough water to avoid dehydration for two hours. Any extra water would have added weight, and he couldn’t have lasted the two hours even. Unfortunately, a headwind cropped up that meant that after two hours, he was still nowhere near the French coast. He still had many miles to go. He was all out of water, and the increased wind also made more turbulence in the air, which made the power required a little bit higher for the plane. And finally, he just had to give up and signal for a tow. A little rubber boat with several people in it went around under him and, with a fishing pole, was trying to snag a line onto a little ring on the plane and provide a tow, to tow it to either one coast or the other. But during the maneuver, he had to move up higher, and he found that the air was a lot calmer up there, in the stable air, and the turbulence was damped out, and it took a little less power up high. Usually it takes a little less power down low; there is a ground effect that helps you. But here there was turbulence that was bad down low. When he got up high, it took a little less power, and so he decided that even though they were trying to catch the plane all the time, he kept dodging, and finally he said — the radio wasn’t working then, but he signaled that he didn’t want to be hooked up, and he decided to continue for five more minutes and give it a try, and the five minutes became ten, became 15, became 20.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/8SDqgcFr0y0?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.01_07_26_23.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.01_07_26_23.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Some of the time, he was down low. For a while, he was down really just six inches above the water, in the changing winds. Somehow he struggled along as his left leg cramped from the dehydration. He pedaled mostly with his right. Then his right leg would cramp, and he would pedal mostly with his left. Towards the end, both legs were cramped, but he somehow just got that last little bit. And there was extra turbulence that was almost beyond the capability of the plane to handle its controls in just that last bit, 50 meters offshore. But finally, he made it. It was almost a three-hour flight — beyond all odds, just impossible for human stamina to have kept going that long, but he did.</p> <p>If it had been high tide, I think he wouldn’t have made it because he would have had to go an extra 100 meters to reach the shore. It was that close. He had worked for the last several months before the flight with a full-time exercise physiologist, Professor Joe Mastropaolo, who helped him train to build up his stamina. Bryan was a good bicyclist but hadn’t been doing Olympic training, but he worked at it very hard. Mastropaolo, I think, gave him the real spirit, the attitude, that you just don’t quit. It doesn’t matter how impossible, how painful, if you are conscious, you are still pedaling. And somehow this sunk into Bryan, and what he did then is just so beyond reasonable human stamina, I’ve never seen anything else like it.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p>So another day of great relief. This pressure was over. We were pretty sure we would succeed sometime, but to have it work the first time was remarkable.</p> <p><strong>The wheel on the front of the Gossamer Condor, wasn’t it actually from a toy?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20210119050908if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/XsW3rup2rnA?feature=oembed&hd=1&modestbranding=1&rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_39_41_09.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/MacCready_Paul_1991_MasterEdit.00_39_41_09.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Paul MacCready: Those are the lightest. You can’t get any non-toy wheels that are down to the two-ounce, three-ounce category. This was about five inches in diameter. It was only going to be used once on the flight, for a few seconds on takeoff. The rest of the time, it was just dead weight. So you don’t want it good and reliable; you want it just strong enough to handle that. We found that on little toy trucks you could find such wheels, so that’s what we used. The idea of this whole project, and the previous Gossamer Albatross project, the only goal was to win the prize, and it wasn’t to have fun, it wasn’t to make a museum piece, it wasn’t to make something that was ever going to fly a second flight. It was just to win the prize. With the Gossamer Condor, we never even drew plans until after the prize was won. Because you didn’t need plans with the way we were doing it. We used computers for some things, but there were no plans drawn. And it’s rare that you have a project that is so simple — one goal, and you can focus on that. People tend to formalize things more, and they do more drawings, and they make parts better than they need to be. We knew exactly what we were trying to do, and we compromised right to the very limit on every little part. So if a toy wheel worked, great.</p> </div> </div>     <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>As you look back, was there a moment you would identify as your big break? </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: The most exciting or heartwarming event that took place was when I suddenly realized — it just suddenly dawned on me — there was a sure-fire approach that would permit one to win the Kremer Prize, achieve the sustained control of human-powered flight that the prize represented. Winning the prize was nice, but that was just inevitable once one had the idea. That was the important part. So that was the sort of “aha!” moment. Many wonderful things have evolved as a consequence of that, so that was a really pretty critical moment. Life would have been okay still if that hadn’t happened, but that certainly launched me on a bunch of other areas, which my background did prepare me for, but I didn’t know what they were.</p> <p><strong>How did Henry Kremer take it when you knocked off the second prize, on your way to the third one? </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: He really wanted a Britisher to win the first prize, and there was a British team working towards the second prize. I think maybe he thought that prize would be just right for the British team. The British team didn’t come close. I think they were annoyed that an American won the next one — also annoyed that it looked like this was a big corporation project, DuPont sponsoring it. Actually, DuPont didn’t sponsor the development of the plane. They said, “Just do the project your own way.” They’d just take care of the major expenses. But I think he would have preferred a Britisher to win it.</p> <p>There was another Kremer Prize to duplicate our first <em>Gossamer Condor</em> flight — a prize of about £10,000, around $15,000 then. A couple of high school kids could have just copied the <em>Condor</em> and built it with $500 of parts and won that prize in England. Nobody did, and it’s hard to figure out. But people in England were most cooperative. We got help throughout. People didn’t seem to care that we were Yanks from overseas. As soon as we landed, the hangar that we had been intending to use fell through, and in just that day we were able to get the Manston RAF base to provide a hangar, which they cleaned out. It was just big enough for us to set up operations in. A lot of people cooperated like that. They were delighted to see the prize won. That was one of the reasons why we were rather delighted to have the plane go to the Science Museum in London after a while. I gave it to the Smithsonian here, but then they loaned it to the Science Museum in London.</p> <p><strong>In this same time period, you also started building low-energy planes that flew on solar power.</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: It was after the <em>Gossamer Albatross</em> project, which worked so well for DuPont. They got huge publicity value out of it — advanced technology and the DuPont spirit, and it’s a nice place to work, and they got more employees, and it was a grabber on television because it was a very exciting thing. There was a good movie done on it that showed some of the excitement. So, then when we went to them with the idea of a solar-powered airplane, they said yes. It was very surprising they said yes at first on that very peculiar human-powered airplane project. They said no a couple of times before they finally agreed. But now, on the solar airplane, they said yes because they figured, if I said it could be done then it could be done. And we got their support and we were doing it. There was no prize; they were going to handle the expenses. The prize was somehow getting the man on the street, the government administrator, and so on, just to have a little better appreciation for what solar cells can mean, and that they are an important part of our energy future and will be one of those things that helps wean us away from this over-addiction to foreign oil which we now have.</p> <p>Flying an airplane on solar power really doesn’t make sense. You can do it as a stunt or as a symbol, but you are not going to have solar-powered airliners. The Solar Challenger was a very elegantly designed, developed airplane — 48-foot span, weighed about 100 pounds of airplane structure and about 100 pounds of solar cells and motor and wiring, and so on, a little over 200 pounds total. The only way to get it to fly properly was to use a very lightweight pilot. We used either a 95-pound woman or a 125-pound man because that’s the easiest way to save weight. It would just barely take off on the sun power that you get down near the ground, where there is usually a little haze. There would be about 1500 watts of energy — solar energy — that you’d get to make it take off. It would kind of stagger into the air at about 19 miles an hour. Then the higher it got, the stronger the sunshine is by a little bit, the cooler the solar cells get, the more power it gets, so it flies better and better. It finally did the flight for which it was intended, Paris to the same Manston RAF base in England, about 163 miles at 11,000 feet. Most of the flight at that altitude was about 40 miles an hour. So it did its job. It was shown around at various exhibits and then became a museum piece like various of our other vehicles.</p> <p><strong>Did that flight have a symbolic importance aside from whatever interest it may have generated scientifically?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Just the fact that you can fly on the power of sunbeams is pretty remarkable. People think differently when they realize that. It’s a catalyst for thinking, and it just gets people to think a little more deeply and a little more openly about alternative energy options.</p> <p><strong>Was it easier to build solar-powered aircraft after dealing with human-powered flight?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Nothing is easy! The solar plane — first we made the <em>Gossamer Penguin</em><em>,</em> which was a leftover human-powered airplane from the cross-Channel project — three-quarters the size of the <em>Gossamer Albatross</em><em>.</em> We put a panel — we happened to have just a small panel’s worth of solar cells at the beginning of the project — and we put those on. We wanted to learn, just get our hands dirty with learning about the solar cells, how you glue them on, how you wire them up, the problems of heating — overheating the little electric motor — and so on. So we put this panel up over the top of the airplane. It provided very little power; I forget — 400 watts or something, total.</p> <p>We needed very lightweight pilots, so we used my son Marshall, who was only 13, as the pilot because he only weighed 80 pounds. And this plane was so different than a regular airplane that it didn’t give you any special advantage to have regular airplane training. Training in skateboards and unicycles is really good training for getting going in this. And he flew the plane very well — adapted quickly and went through a lot of test flights. One very dramatic crash, but like all our crashes, the pilot wears a helmet, it’s low and slow — it goes up around 15 miles an hour, in this case — and nobody got really hurt any worse than you would in a small bicycle accident.</p> <p>He did the first flight where any human has actually climbed on the power of sunbeams, as we got that plane going. And then, for publicity purposes, we had to show it in a long flight for the media at Edwards Air Force Base that didn’t seem interested in having a 13-year-old kid without a license out flying. The goal of the project really was media. That’s what the money was being paid for. Having to do special flights, spend extra weeks, and so on, on them, is not a distraction from our project, it is part of our project. Some of the engineers just want to do the airplane, but after a while, they get to realize this is all part of the program. It’s just as important as a better airfoil, handling the media aspects right. Part of the good of the program, aside from helping the sponsor, is getting the word out on it. So when people hear about it, they begin understanding about solar cells and lightweight construction.</p> <p><strong>When you took the solar power efforts you’d made in the air and took them to the ground, were there any major difference that you had to compensate for? Was there something that was fundamentally different about doing it on the ground than in the air?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Nothing fundamentally different. The Sunraycer really is a very aerodynamic sort of vehicle, made with airplane composite construction techniques, and some very lightweight tubular structure and solar cells were rather similar, and electric motor, and so on. Still, it was for a different purpose, so you did a very different design. That project started because General Motors, when they heard about the solar-powered car race across Australia, they just thought, “Hey, maybe this would be fun to enter.” They had recently acquired Hughes Aircraft that makes solar cells and is a high technology company. They thought a challenge like this would help the outside world appreciate that they were high technology, GM and Hughes — also an interesting challenge for their engineers, and they wanted to get back more into competition, and especially, they thought it would be good for education. They thought it would be a very appealing project — the vehicle would be of interest to youngsters, kind of like a dinosaur is, but would get people turned on to engineering and science. So maybe more of the best and brightest would become scientists and engineers, instead of lawyers and MBAs that maybe the world doesn’t need more of. So the educational aspects were very large in their minds. They decided they wanted to do it but didn’t know really if they could.</p> <p>We were able to get a lot of things going in parallel and have a very quick project because we knew the various aspects that had to go into the thing. There’s only eight months from the start of the project to the race, and we were able to handle it and even have 4,000 miles of testing on the car before it started the race so as to be sure of reliability.</p> <p><strong>That car, while it demonstrated some of the benefits of solar power and its applications, as did solar-powered aircraft, sounds like it was more of a scientific curiosity than something that really had widespread application and potential.</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Yes, I don’t think there is any reason to have solar-powered cars in the future. That car did have a small battery in it, but it started with the battery filled and finished the project with the battery filled. It was able to use the battery when there were clouds in the late afternoon.</p> <p>If you have a battery-powered car, it doesn’t hurt to put on solar cells. You get a little help. But a real solar-powered car doesn’t make much sense. This was a nice stepping-stone toward it that got a lot of people thinking about it. Certainly, if there had not been the great success of the Sunraycer, there probably would not have been the Impact car project, which now is just a battery-powered car with no involvement with solar cells.</p> <p><strong>Could you tell us more about the battery-powered car?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: If we are talking about the Impact car that we sort of led the development team on for General Motors, it’s a small, jazzy-looking, two-person car, but it’s got almost 900 pounds of battery in it — regular lead-acid cells but carefully tailored to the purposes of this vehicle. In ordinary use, you would plug it into the wall socket when you get home at night, and the battery would be fully charged the next morning. If you want to plug it into a higher power circuit, you can charge it much more quickly than that. Once charged, it’s got the fast accelerations — zero to 60 in eight seconds. We limit it electronically to 75 miles an hour, but it would go way over 100 if you wanted it to. We don’t know any reason for it to. The range, in either the urban cycle or the highway cycle, starts at 120 miles, but when the battery gets a little worn down, you may not be able to get quite as much. And if you want to use the air conditioner a lot, which it does have, then you won’t go as far. But for most commuting tasks, that’s enough to handle things.</p> <p>The local power company could provide enough electricity at nighttime to charge up several million of these vehicles in the Los Angeles area without adding any capacity. Because it has to have a big capacity to handle everybody’s air conditioners in the afternoon in the summer, and then you don’t use much of anything at night, and so they have a lot of electricity to charge those vehicles.</p> <p>If you do a long trip, in the middle of the day while you are having lunch, you could recharge what you use then to get a bit greater distance. In the long run, I think hybrid cars are going to win out, which are like the electric Impact to which you have added a little auxiliary power unit which somehow converts chemical energy — gasoline, hydrogen, compressed natural gas, propane, whatever — to electricity by a little reciprocating engine, or a gas turbine, or fuel cell, or there are a lot of different candidate devices being looked at now. You can operate fully electric some of the time, but if you really want to go to Phoenix from Los Angeles, if this thing uses gasoline, you generate the electricity on board. But you do it with great efficiency because the engine that’s generating electricity only has to operate at one power setting, one rpm, and it can convert the fuel very efficiently to electricity in that one condition and do it with very low air pollution.</p> <p><strong>Is that the main advantage of the hybrid car?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: One of the big advantages is in city traffic, where you are putting on the brakes all the time, you are throwing away huge energy, but with an electric car, you get that energy back because it uses regenerative braking. Instead of heating the brake linings, you shove electricity back into the battery. One big feature of the electric car is that the battery is such a poor source of energy compared to gasoline. You only get one percent as much energy out of a lead-acid cell system as you get out of the same weight of gasoline. It is a factor of 100 hit you are taking. The only reason it works is because you make the vehicle superbly efficient. That’s why it hasn’t been done before. It took the concept of efficiency honed through the human-powered airplanes and the Sunraycer to get the efficiency that makes the Impact feasible. Once you’ve done that, you can apply that efficiency to other vehicles, gasoline vehicles, and consume much less gasoline. Or if you wanted to use compressed natural gas — which is awkward because you have to have a big tank, which is heavy — if you don’t need much energy, now you get by on a little tank. It becomes much more convenient. So efficiency just has all sorts of advantages in making things feasible and cutting down pollution.</p> <p><strong>It sounds like you’re thinking a lot about energy and the future these days.</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Well, yes. Energy is one part of the whole problem. There are too many people and too much consumption and not enough Earth. We could get by with it in the past, but now it’s going up like that. Population has tripled since I was born, and there is more energy and more materials per capita being used now, and species are being wiped out. The latest number I saw was one every four minutes is disappearing because of man. It’s a very different ballgame that we are facing. You can’t extrapolate it from the past. Anything that makes it so we can get along on this limited world is better. And doing more with less is part of it, and somehow getting off our energy jag, our addiction, is important.</p> <p>You can do so many things with so much less energy than we now use. Airplanes, regular airliners, especially modern ones, are really designed brilliantly. They are made for efficiency. Nobody cares what they look like on the outside — they are made to do their job. The aerodynamics is elegant, the structure is elegant, and they’re really fine.</p> <p>Cars, on the other hand, are designed for a very different purpose, and styling is important. Inexpensive mass production is important, a lot of safety — operation by unskilled people — and you like peppy performance. It ends up, when you do all that, they consume a lot of power. There aren’t any airplane aerodynamicists really involved in their design, although there are good aerodynamicists mixed in with the stylists. But if you look at the underside of any car that does see the air just as much as the topside sees it, you realize how little attention is paid to smooth aerodynamics of cars.</p> <p><strong>Many people see solar power as such a promising technology. Why haven’t we done more with it?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: The biggest thing why we haven’t done more with all sorts of alternative energies is the existing energies we have are so wonderful. Oil is so relatively inexpensive — not when you look at<em> all</em> its real costs, but in some ways it is. And natural gas is good. And nuclear power; the plants you already have are relatively inexpensive. Hydropower is pretty good. But we don’t really have more nuclear power — there are a lot of troubles with it — and you can’t get much more hydropower. So those are limited. And coal has a lot of trouble associated with it. But these are all somewhat inexpensive. All the economically viable alternatives were worked on for economic reasons in the past. Now when you try and find some new thing that maybe doesn’t have as much pollution or is replenishable, so you are never going to run out, you find that it is not as cheap as these others that are more limited in their future and have some negatives on pollution about them. Unfortunately, all the things people have tried are more expensive. Solar cells were very expensive and have steadily come down in price, and in the best of circumstances, they can almost compete with certain of the oil-burning power plants. Wind power is the same. It’s been expensive, and we had subsidies for it.</p> <p><strong>Is this ever going to change?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: In a while, gasoline is going to be very expensive. I don’t know just when that while is, but it’s a vanishing resource, and its sources are tangled up with some very unfortunate political-military problems. In the United States, we are going to run out of our supply fairly soon. We’re going to be completely dependent on others. It’s going to be a very sticky thing. We are finally going to start recognizing the real costs of it, not just the costs to ship it here and put it in your car. So it’s going to be expensive, and we’re not going to be using it in gasoline after a while. Certainly, your grandchildren aren’t going to be driving cars using gasoline. What they’re going to be using flying airliners, I don’t know — because oil for airliners, I don’t know of a really practical substitute. There are a lot of substitutes you can make for surface transportation. Surface transportation problems are all mingled with traffic problems, too. There are technological solutions to get by on less energy, to put out less pollution. I don’t know the technological problems to handle the traffic — there are too many people and not enough world, and traffic is a big problem. Telecommunications are going to get much greater use as time goes on because travel, like the Los Angeles area, is going to be so awkward. So that’s one of the things that will grow.</p> <p><strong>Let’s go back to the beginning. When did you first get a sense of what you wanted to do in your career?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: I recall that when I was 12, I wanted to be a doctor because my father was a doctor, and you just assume that’s what you’re going to be. But shortly after that, having gotten very involved in model airplanes, I found I was much more interested in aviation and figured I’d probably have something to do with aviation but really didn’t have a detailed career goal in mind. It was just becoming more obvious that it would have something to do with aviation and maybe physics and engineering as time went on. But even when I was in graduate school, I didn’t really know what I was going to get into. What did happen then was very different than what you could have predicted anyhow.</p> <p><strong>What kind of books did you read when you were growing up?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: When I think back about early books, I read the various Oz stories, some myth-fable things. As a teenager, I remember Jerry Todd stories, which was kind of like a humorous Tom Swift fare. There were a lot of Big Little Books — <em>Flash Gordon, Tarzan</em>, probably things like that. As one got older, some more serious books and novels, and now all kinds of books, and there are great magazines that come in great profusion. You can’t possibly keep up with all of them.</p> <p>Probably the book that really got me going into something, more than anything else, was Comstock’s — I think it was Comstock’s moth book. Maybe he has a butterfly book, also, because I got just hugely involved, probably around the age of ten, in collecting butterflies and moths, and it became quite an addiction. I learned the scientific names of all the big butterflies and moths and did a lot of collecting. At that period, your mind is pretty fertile, and if you have a hobby, you can devote yourself rather wholeheartedly to it. That was a pretty good one: coaxing you to read and be outside a lot and do a bunch of new things. I do remember those books.</p> <p><strong>How about school? Was there a particular subject that you liked better than others?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: The ones that were easiest, I probably liked. Physics and math were easy because they just involved principles. They were kind of fun like games and just interesting. History and English were very difficult, and so I didn’t enjoy them, but I did pay a lot of attention to them because I figured if I’m not good at them, I should work a little harder at them.</p> <p>As I look back, I realize I probably had some manifestations that would be called dyslexia now — not a basket case but certainly, in some things, a short attention span. If I would start reading a paragraph of history, by the time I was to the second sentence, my mind would be a thousand miles away. And even in physics classes, I would tend to daydream about other things, not getting much good out of the class. And now, I still notice I do tend to jump between subjects in my mind and think about a lot of different things. Also, if I write down 274, I say 274, I write down 274, and I look at it, and I’ve written 254 because I’m still mixing up a few numbers. There is some misconnection between some part of the brain and another part of the motor system but not enough to be at all troublesome. But it sure makes you realize that if you had a bad case of that, how difficult it would be to get by in life.</p> <p>By having a brain that works a little differently than what best fits the school system, you learn to cope and you emphasize the things — you do it the way that best suits you. I did most of my learning during the homework rather than the class period. I was very envious of people who “got it” in class and therefore didn’t have to spend the time on homework. But that means you can work on your own pretty well, and that has some benefits associated with it.</p> <p><strong>Do you think that’s a shortcoming of the school system? </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Oh, yes, of our whole culture. I think that people without dyslexia seem like oddballs to me. When we were evolving into <em>Homo sapiens</em>, say, 100,000 years ago, in the savannahs of Africa — why would the ability to look at little wiggly lines on a flat sheet and interpret sounds and messages from them and see the little details between the different curlicues — why would that have anything to do with survival? Whereas other things that dyslexics may be pretty good at — the ability to see, run, reason, fight the lion, whatever — I can understand how all those talents provided survival and therefore evolutionary selection. But the ability to read, which is so much what our modern civilization is focused on — until we all get to be TV addicts, I guess — seems sort of unnatural. But our whole school system and culture is built up around that, and I think there may be a certain impedance mismatch between that and what people really are.</p> <p><strong>Many of us built model airplanes, but there was something about it that fascinated you. What do you think it was?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: I think one thing was that in high school, I was always the smallest kid in the class by a good bit, and I was not especially coordinated and certainly not the athlete type — though I enjoyed running around outside — and was socially sort of immature, not the comfortable leader teenager type. And so, when I began getting into model airplanes and getting into contests and creating new things, I probably got more psychological benefit from that than I would have from some of the other typical school things, which I’m sure I would have preferred then. Without thinking about it, I probably found the models more appealing. Of course, as I look back now, I’m delighted that I had these defects or problems back then and got into models, which led to a lot of other things that have been very exciting, rather just being a football jock, which I certainly would not be at this age.</p> <p>But I somehow got especially interested in a large variety of models. My father was very supportive and that helped, but he wasn’t leading me, he was supporting. I found myself instinctively drawn to working on ornithopters, autogyros, helicopters, indoor models, outdoor models, hand launch gliders, rubber power, gas power, just a big variety. Some of them were okay. I wasn’t as good as some other modelers, but I don’t think anybody had the breadth of experience in different kinds that I had back then. There is something appealing about it, and in a few cases, you’d get some records in some new category, which was fun. But a lot of it was just plain enjoyable to do something that was new and different that hadn’t been done before.</p> <p><strong>What other experiences or events do you think most influenced you growing up? </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: I was in a culture, the sort of schools that I went to, the various people that I was with, that my family was involved with. You all worked hard, reasonably so — had a good life. But you tried to get good marks in school without knowing why you were trying to get good marks. It was just that’s what everybody did. And you look back, and you’re sort of glad you paid that much attention to schooling. But it was just the culture of the people who were doing things and sort of achieving. It was coming out of the Depression era and life was maybe a little simpler then. You’re working hard to try and get someplace.</p> <p>So starting with that was quite comfortable. From the private high school that I went to — sort of everybody who goes there almost automatically goes to Yale. And then I got a good education at Caltech afterwards, still not quite knowing what you’re getting the education for. It’s just part of “that’s what you do.” It was later that I really began some of the doing. So being in the right circumstance — a bit privileged to be able to go to some of these things — was very helpful.</p> <p><strong>What led you into flying sailplanes? You made models and so forth, but what led you in that direction rather than in flying Cessnas and that sort of thing? </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: When you get into outdoor model airplane flying for duration, you get involved in thermals and long duration flights, and you begin hearing a little bit about sailplanes.</p> <p>I remember a newsreel in, let’s say 1938, when I was 13 years old, that showed a sailplane flying over a slope at El Mirage — just this big, graceful machine flying along. It still sticks in my mind as an early memory. The newsreel also showed it crashed a few minutes later, but that didn’t bother me. I think nobody was hurt. It was just such a wonderful kind of flying.</p> <p>And then I found when in the Navy, in Navy pilot training down in Pensacola, with a lot of spare time, watching the thunderstorms grow up, I knew a few people who were involved in the sailplane field by then. You’re picturing flights that sailplanes could make in such wonderful up-currents.</p> <p>Circumstances through these friends permitted me to get involved actively in it after the war. I found that it was a wonderful, addicting hobby. It was a very scientific sort of hobby. It’s not just like going out and rowing a boat. You get involved in the science of the vehicle because the vehicle has to be efficient — and the science of meteorology because you have to learn something about meteorology to figure out where the up-currents are and how to make proper use of them. So it doesn’t matter what your background is, you become a scientist of sorts if you get involved in active sailplaning. It’s a very elegant hobby from that standpoint.</p> <p><strong>It must be wonderful to have a hobby where you marry your passion to your technological and scientific interests. </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: That particular hobby was good because I was able to fly in contests, which are a lot of fun but sort of demanding. I didn’t do much flying in-between times because it was very inconvenient. But then for contests, you could go for a whole two weeks. You’d go sometimes to a foreign country and really be very active, learn a lot about the country, meet a lot of people from all around the world, and do the flying. It was a very special hobby from that standpoint.</p> <p>I don’t think of myself as especially competitive, and I sometimes wonder about competitions and how they motivate people. I don’t have a lot of answers, but competitions are great things for coordinating people’s interests. It doesn’t matter whether there is a money prize or just a trophy, people all get together and do compete and share, and it may not matter who wins. Though I find that if you’re in a contest, there’s always some motivation towards trying to win, but the real value is just entering the competition.</p> <p><strong>There are many people who would look at that and think that it is just one step away from skydiving. There is a great deal of danger and excitement in that. Did you think about it in that way?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: When I got into sailplanes, I’d already been doing aviation. I pictured sailplanes should be less expensive, don’t burn any gasoline, should be a lot more fun, and should be safer. There are many fewer moving parts; there is no engine to go bad; you should be more in control of your own destiny than you are in a typical airplane. In Navy pilot training, I was given very good principles of safety. They’re very safety-minded, and you double-checked everything. And you were always aware, if the engine went bad, you could still get down to a landing spot, and things like that. That carried over into the sailplane training.</p> <p>I thought that I was operating pretty safely, but you were operating with experimental aircraft, which are a little more risky than some. I didn’t do anything that I thought was dangerous because danger is not the least bit appealing. It’s just dumb. You should avoid it. Still, when you’re flying inside thunderstorms, you go to where some of the most vicious weather is, and you’re maybe even in some hailstorm — a hail-generating part of a cloud — huge up-currents and down-currents and big turbulence. You can get into things that are a bit more intense than expected, and you may have to land someplace, in some giant wind and big wind shears. So you get a proper respect for weather, and you try to be very careful. But still, in various competitions, I found that by making a series of very safe decisions, I still ended up in an unsafe place. It didn’t make me thrilled or excited, it just made me mad and resolving not to get in those circumstances again.</p> <p>The last flight I had in competition — in the 1956 international contest in France that I won — I got in circumstances where whether I survived or didn’t just was a flip of the coin, whether the turbulence went that way or that way. Because I was down in a valley from which there was no way to get out, with huge turbulence just buffeting you like a little chip of wood in a frothing surf. I didn’t like that. Also, some of the flying, there are often many sailplanes all in the same thermal, with people not watching out properly. I found other people willing to take many more chances than I would. Two sailplanes would be willing to go into the same small cloud at the same time, things like that. I began figuring this really wasn’t the sport for me. I did some dumber things after that but never with the intention of them being dangerous.</p> <p><strong>You’ve always been ready to take on new challenges. It sounds like you didn’t see a lot of limits on human potential. </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: If you want to move mountains, you just go move mountains. If you don’t have a big enough shovel, you get some friends to help you. If you have the enthusiasm to charge ahead, you can do all sorts of things. Some things you can’t do. You can’t invent a perpetual motion machine. You’ve got to select your targets. But people can do so much more than they realize.</p> <p><strong>What is it that makes us often focus on the obstacles rather than the possibilities?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Oh, it’s our whole lives — our education system, our parents, circumstances. I think you can get away from it fairly quickly by being put in circumstances where everybody else just doesn’t even know the word “problems.” Challenges they understand, but things aren’t barriers. If there is a barrier or a stone wall, you walk around the end or you leap over it. You don’t beat your head against it. I think it’s not inherent in humans; it’s just the way we have gotten our system going. I’ve gotten a good bit into thinking skills, and the teaching of thinking skills. Thinking skills means many different things to people, but mostly it’s an open way of perceiving the outside world and being much more open in what you’re doing, how you handle problems. The exciting part of it is that you can hugely improve a person’s thinking skill in just a few hours because you haven’t had it in school before. But if somebody teaches you a few little tricks that can become habits, and you are a different thinker, it only took a few hours.</p> <p><strong>You said some of the people you knew growing up were a fairly important influence on your thinking and your sense of what your own potential was. </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Yes, they were. As one thinks back over some mentors, it wasn’t teachers in school, who I’m sure did a good job, but I was not a responsive student, I’ll put it that way. I didn’t interact with them a lot. But some things, more on the outside that related to hobbies, did provide this. So in model-airplaning, there is a national champion I got to know and his good friend — who became my father-in-law eventually and also was my entre into sailplaning — I think they were to some extent mentors. And another person, Dr. August Raspet, in the sailplane business, just a wonderful scientist, so excited about what he was doing — eclectic, just dealing with all sorts of subjects — and when you spent time with him, it rubbed off. The final one was Irving Langmuir, a Nobel Prize winner, in physical chemistry, I guess, who was one of the pioneers in weather modification and was very helpful to me. And just following him around, interacting with him, a lot of enthusiasm rubbed off, and again, a feeling of “There are no barriers; you just charge ahead.” It doesn’t matter whether you know anything about that subject. He’d plunge into a new subject and ask lots of questions, make mistakes, and plod ahead. And it didn’t worry him whether he was right or wrong, as long as he was building up something toward something worthwhile. So he was helpful.</p> <p><strong>Do you often find that something you learned in an unrelated field takes you in a direction you would never have imagined, had you not stumbled onto it in a search for knowledge? </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: I’m lucky I’ve been able to move from one field to another. I find, when you are in some subject five years or ten years at the right stage, that can be really exciting, when some things are getting going. But when you’ve got full-time people working with great skill at some details of it, doing so much better than you possibly could, you somehow find you are off in some other field, and the breadth, going from one field to another, is very useful. But the world needs all kinds. We sure need the specialist to do very elegant things in some narrower field. But especially, as things are changing and evolving so quickly now, in all fields of science, philosophy, history, and everything else, ambling around from one field to another is especially important. I’m sort of lucky that I’ve been able to do that. It’s kind of comfortable because when you get into a new field, you don’t have some position to protect. You can ask any dumb question and learn an awful lot. And sometimes you bring something a little different to that field than the people who are already in it, so you can make some contribution.</p> <p><strong>You obviously worked very hard along the way. Do you think luck or happenstance play a fairly large role in what happens to someone in his or her life? </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: If you charge around, do a lot of things, you have more opportunity for luck. In the sort of things I’m doing, you do find the help of various people is very critical to what goes on. You don’t stand proudly and say, “I did all this.” It’s many other people who helped you along the way that is a key element. If you figure out exactly what you are going to do and just go doggedly at that for three decades, you’re going to miss a lot of boats. The way the world is going now, the change is so rapid — what is important is evolving so quickly that I think you’d better jump into new opportunities and new challenges. It may not do you as well economically, but I think it’s important.</p> <p><strong>Important for your own outlook on life?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: You could say your contribution to the world but also keeping you really alive. It was very awkward for people who were good students, went into the aerospace industry because that was the best job offer for the engineer or the aerodynamicist, and they get more specialized, and they get a salary rapidly going up very high — a salary with all the military-industrial complex procurements. The person would get narrower and narrower and more specialized and end up sort of useless for the world, unfortunately. And then if suddenly there was a big cutback, this person with a salary up here couldn’t even get a salary down here because they weren’t that useful for anything else. I’m not against narrowness. Some of the very best things happen with people who are real specialists, but there is more virtue in adaptability now because the world is changing so fast and has so many aspects to it. It is not the simpler world it was back 50 years ago or 100 years ago.</p> <p><strong>That certainly argues for maintaining a breadth of interests and a breadth of knowledge. </strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Whatever you’ve been trained in, it’s the wrong field for the most exciting, important subjects of 20 years from now, so adaptability is very desirable. But when you go to school, it is great to develop some skills and learn fundamentals and develop approaches to things. Those are common to anything you get into. And there is a lot of very good training that engineers and scientists get. They deal with reality and tend to be creative and have to figure out goals and solve problems. Sometimes, when they get into art or history or philosophy at some later time, they bring some talents to those fields that the people who go through the ordinary training aren’t as good at.</p> <p><strong>Does that background make them more creative?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: I picture that everybody is creative. When you’re in the playpen, fiddling around with all sorts of things, you’re creative. And certainly in the sandbox, you’re creative — and playing around with toys, or the boxes the toys come in, which often offer more creativity. Everybody is — the way you’re interacting with people. You’re very creative the way you manipulate two adults when you’re a youngster. You can figure out just how far to push them. But then somehow you get into school and more standard parts of culture and so much of this erodes with most people. But really, everybody is creative. Put in the right circumstances, even if they haven’t been what you’d call “creative,” I think the creativity can be fanned into flame.</p> <p><strong>If you were talking to someone who is now starting in college, trying to figure out what area to go into, where would you point them?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: I’d probably go into education, which I wouldn’t have said years ago. But there are just such huge things you can do in education because so much is done so poorly, not because there aren’t dedicated people, but just a lot of new ideas are emerging, and they’re hard to inject into a system with a lot of inertia. And right now, teachers don’t get much respect or much money. I think that’s going to change as they get recognized as being so important, and it’s a very satisfying job. Teaching, especially to youngsters — second grade, seventh grade, fifth grade, around that — is of absolute tremendous importance. These are sort of the brightest minds. They haven’t been beaten down by being narrowed, and they’re open to all sorts of things. And if you can help the opening process, that’s very good.</p> <p>The other subject to get into deals with the most potent thing, weapon, whatever you want to call it, in the world, which is the human mind — you might call it the adult mind — which is getting mingled with technology now. How one gets this all together, I don’t know. There is nothing more important. Soon, in your computer terminal, you will be able to access essentially any book, any drawing, anything around the world. You’ll be able, through telecommunications, to talk to anybody, anyplace. You’ll be able to talk their language through little translators — to anybody, anyplace — just beyond the comprehension of people who are around now. You may be able to couple your brain to a computer, not by voice, sound, or punching buttons, but by things implanted in your brain. It’s conceivable. Even the definition of what’s a human is going to get more fuzzy. Computers are now insidiously taking over and becoming more our masters than our servants, more than we realize. I happen to think that the surviving intelligent life form on Earth is going to be silicon-based, not carbon-based. More people are agreeing with me — computers are going to take over. They’re going to be brighter than people in the not-too-distant future. We’ll be pets for a while, and then after that, I don’t know.</p> <p><strong>You’ve expressed great concern about the balance between technology and nature. Have we addressed that or is there something more?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Man has basically won the war against nature. Unfortunately, that’s the bad news. You wish he hadn’t. If you were a galactic explorer, come from some distant galaxy, and you looked in at the earth and tried to write it up and characterize what are humans, what are they like, the easiest analogy that you get is “a cancer.” A cancer just grows. From the standpoint of the cancer, it’s great — more cancer cells all the time. From the standpoint of the other cells that they’re crowding out, it’s the pits. And of course, after a while, they kill their host, which is bad for the cancer cells as well as the other cells. And that’s what we’re on the road to.</p> <p><strong>It appears that you’re skeptical about technology. Do you really see this as a danger in the not-too-distant future?</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Man has become God. You used to think you were just this little thing, and there were circumstances — lightning, the big world, whatever. Now you can control things. You can wipe out all the other species. You may be doing it anyhow, but it’s up to you. And you can do genetic engineering, you can create new species, and just do things that were beyond comprehension before, and turn the world into whatever you want. I don’t think humans have the brains, the wisdom, to be very good at this because that’s not the way they were brought up. They’ve got all these huge tools, but they are like a two-year-old with a .45 automatic — doesn’t know what to do with it. What you’d like is to not have as many automatics around and get that two-year-old a little brighter.</p> <p>I alternate between pessimism and optimism. I found the best pessimism summary comes from the great philosopher Woody Allen, who said that “Civilization is at a crossroads. One road leads to misery and devastation, the other to total destruction. We must choose wisely.” There’s a lot more to that statement than you might think.</p> <p><strong>Thank you very much. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege.</strong></p> <p>Paul MacCready: Thank you.</p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>15 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.34342105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sidebyside-1940s-maccready.jpg" data-image-caption="1938: 13-year-old Paul MacCready with a gas-powered model airplane; 1940: MacCready, age 15, poses with his airplane “Topper,” which won trophies in two classes by swapping out two different-sized engines. (© Caltech)" data-image-copyright="sidebyside-1940s-maccready" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sidebyside-1940s-maccready-380x131.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sidebyside-1940s-maccready-760x261.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-1983-RR032437.jpg" data-image-caption="March 1983: Paul MacCready holds a model of the Gossamer Albatross, an aircraft designed to fly long distances with a human as the only power source, at his Simi Valley-based company, AeroVironment. (© Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Paul MacCready, Inventor of Human-Powered Flight" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-1983-RR032437-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-1983-RR032437-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5322580645161" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1981-wp-U2036669A-1.jpg" data-image-caption="March 29, 1981: Paul MacCready working on the Solar Challenger. From Gossamer Penguin, MacCready developed Solar Challenger — which, in 1981, set the world record for the highest, farthest, and longest solar-powered manned flight, with a 260-kilometer, 5-hour, 23-minute trip from the Pontoise-Cormeilles Aerodrome, north of Paris, across the English Channel to RAF Manston. Built as a demonstrator for solar power and advanced composite structural materials, the airframe and solar propulsion system weighed only 93 kilograms and was designed for a 9G ultimate load factor. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Inventor Paul MacCready Sitting at Desk" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1981-wp-U2036669A-1-248x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1981-wp-U2036669A-1-496x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-WP-GettyImages-80896291-1.jpg" data-image-caption="1979, England: Dr. Paul B. MacCready checks the polystyrene foam on the fuselage of his second human-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Albatross. The aircraft was constructed using a carbon fiber frame, with the ribs of the wings made with polystyrene; the entire structure was then wrapped in thin, transparent plastic. (Otis Imboden/Getty)" data-image-copyright="Designer checks polystyrene foam on fuselage of his special aircraft" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-WP-GettyImages-80896291-1-380x255.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-WP-GettyImages-80896291-1-760x509.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.80263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-gossamer-penguin-July-25-1979-BOB-RHINE-ECN-13413.jpg" data-image-caption="July 25, 1979: Janice Brown flying the Gossamer Penguin on Rogers Dry Lake using a combination of solar and battery power. The Gossamer Penguin was a solar-powered experimental aircraft created by Paul MacCready’s AeroVironment. On August 7, 1980, Janice Brown flew the Gossamer Penguin in full view of a crowd gathered on the Edwards dry lakebed at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in California. Janice flew the Penguin almost 3.5 km that day in 14 minutes, 21 seconds. This was the first sustained flight of a solar-powered aircraft and the longest Penguin flight since development had started on the aircraft two years earlier. (Photo by Bob Rhine/NASA)" data-image-copyright="wp-gossamer penguin - July 25 1979 - BOB RHINE ECN-13413" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-gossamer-penguin-July-25-1979-BOB-RHINE-ECN-13413-380x305.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-gossamer-penguin-July-25-1979-BOB-RHINE-ECN-13413-760x610.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-new-profile-square.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Paul B. MacCready" data-image-copyright="maccready-new-profile-square" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-new-profile-square-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-new-profile-square.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-526279993.jpg" data-image-caption="May 16, 1979: Hang glider pilot Bryan Allen (left) and aeronautical engineer Paul MacCready beside the human-powered aircraft, the Gossamer Albatross, in London. The Gossamer Albatross went on to complete a successful crossing of the English Channel to win the £100,000 Kremer Prize on June 12, 1979. (United News and Popperfoto)" data-image-copyright="Gossamer Albatross Duo" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-526279993-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-526279993-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.35394736842105" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS.jpg" data-image-caption="Paul MacCready in front of a wing section of the ultra-lightweight Helios Prototype flying wing at AeroVironment’s Design Development Center in Simi Valley, California. The bi-facial cells, manufactured by SunPower, Inc., of Sunnyvale, California, are among 64,000 solar cells which have been installed on the solar-powered aircraft to provide electricity to its 14 motors and operating systems. The Helios Prototype is the latest and largest example of a slow-flying ultralight flying wing designed for high-altitude, long-duration Earth science or telecommunications relay missions; On September 8, 1999, the remotely-piloted, electrically-powered Helios Prototype went aloft on its maiden low-altitude checkout flight over Rogers Dry Lake adjacent to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in the Southern California desert. The initial flight series was flown on battery power as a risk-reduction measure. In all, six flights were flown in the Helios Protoype’s initial development series. (NASA/Tom Tschida/Nick Galante)" data-image-copyright="SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS-380x134.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/SIDEBYSIDE-paulmaccready-HELIOS-760x269.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013.jpg" data-image-caption="Inventor and aeronautical engineer Dr. Paul B. MacCready standing with the solar-powered plane and car and a radio-controlled replica of a giant pterodactyl his company designed and built. In April 1984, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum initiated the project to build and fly the replica (called QN). One goal of the project is to fly the QN replica on the Mall in Washington, D.C., in June 1986 in conjunction with the opening of the National Air and Space Museum’s IMAX film On the Wing. The QN replica will play a significant role in the film, which explores the connections between nature’s fliers and aircraft. (Michael Salas/LIFE Images Collection)" data-image-copyright="Paul Maccready" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1985-wp-GettyImages-50425013-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66842105263158" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/WP-gossamer-PENGUIN-GettyImages-516490134.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Paul MacCready and pilot Janice Brown. Following the Gossamer Albatross, MacCready took on an ambitious project designing a human-piloted, solar-powered aircraft. The Gossamer Penguin had a 71-foot wingspan and weighed 68 pounds without a pilot. The official project pilot was Janice Brown, a Bakersfield schoolteacher who weighed under 100 pounds and was a charter pilot with commercial, instrument, and glider ratings. She checked out at Shafter Airport and made about 40 flights under battery and solar power there. On August 7, 1980, Brown flew a public demonstration of the aircraft at Dryden Flight Research Center, in which it went roughly 1.95 miles in 14 minutes and 21 seconds. This was significant as the first sustained flight of an aircraft relying solely on direct solar power rather than batteries. It provided designers with practical experience for developing a more advanced, solar-powered aircraft." data-image-copyright="Paul MacCready and Janice Brown" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/WP-gossamer-PENGUIN-GettyImages-516490134-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/WP-gossamer-PENGUIN-GettyImages-516490134-760x508.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67236842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-80896003.jpg" data-image-caption="June 12, 1979: Pilot Bryan Allen powers the Gossamer Albatross to the rehearsed speed of 75 revolutions per minute and soars above the English Channel en route to France. (Otis Imboden/National Geographic and Getty)" data-image-copyright="Man-powered aircraft soars above English Channel en route to France" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-80896003-380x256.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1979-wp-GettyImages-80896003-760x511.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.70657894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1977-GettyImages-515114242.jpg" data-image-caption="August 23, 1977: American hangglider pilot Bryan Allen flies the pedal-powered Gossamer Condor aircraft during a competition at Shafter Airport. The Gossamer Condor, designed by Dr. Paul MacCready, completed a figure-8 course over 1-1/4 miles while remaining at least 18 feet off the ground to win the Kremer Prize. (Bettman/Getty)" data-image-copyright="Gossamer Albatross in Flight" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1977-GettyImages-515114242-380x268.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1977-GettyImages-515114242-760x537.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2218649517685" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1948-maccready.png" data-image-caption="1948: 22-year-old Paul MacCready, a graduate student at Caltech, flies the Orlik in a soaring contest over Torrey Pines, on the Southern California coast north of San Diego. A few months later he won the 15th National Soaring Championship held at Elmira, New York, with the same plane, a Polish-built sailplane with 49.5-foot wingspan. He wrote on the back of the photo: “It was much more fun without the canopy.” (Paul B. MacCready Papers/Caltech)" data-image-copyright="1948 maccready" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1948-maccready-311x380.png [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/1948-maccready-622x760.png"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.4" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-2.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Paul B. MacCready" data-image-copyright="maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-2-380x152.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/maccready-Feature-Image-3-Recovered-2-760x304.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67105263157895" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-2003-helios-prototype-ED03-0152-3.jpg" data-image-caption="June 7, 2003: NASA’S Helios Prototype electrically-powered flying wing over the Hawaiian island of Kauai. On August 13, 2001, the Helios Prototype, piloted remotely by Greg Kendall, reached an altitude of 96,863 feet (29,524 m), a world record for sustained horizontal flight by a winged aircraft. The altitude reached was more than 11,000 feet (3,400 m) — or more than two miles (3.2 km) — above the previous altitude record for sustained flight by a winged aircraft. In addition, the aircraft spent more than 40 minutes above 96,000 feet (29,000 m). (Carla Thomas)" data-image-copyright="wp-2003-helios prototype - ED03-0152-3" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-2003-helios-prototype-ED03-0152-3-380x255.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2019/03/wp-2003-helios-prototype-ED03-0152-3-760x510.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" 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Fauci, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/peter-gabriel/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peter Gabriel</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/leymah-gbowee/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leymah Gbowee</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol W. Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-john-gurdon/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir John Gurdon</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/paul-b-maccready-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul B. MacCready, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/reinhold-messner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reinhold Messner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/cal-ripken-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Cal Ripken Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony D. Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20210119050908/https://achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. 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