Airglow

History

Pedal-driven human-powered aircraft (HPA) Airglow was designed and developed by brothers John and Mark McIntyre of Cambridgeshire. John McIntyre, holder of a marine engineering degree, and his brother Mark McIntyre, a professional model-builder, were both keen aero-modellers and had a history of building creative contraptions including a sail-propelled-bicycle and a hot-air-balloon which carried a camera.

John McIntyre accompanied the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department's Daedalus human-powered aircraft that, on 23 April 1988, flew a distance of 72.4 miles in 3 hours, 54 minutes, from Heraklion on the island of Crete to the island of Santorini. The flight holds official FAI world records for total distance, straight-line distance, and duration for human-powered aircraft.

Work on Airglow began after this and was built to exacting standards; any part not perfect was scrapped and re-built. Testament to this is the fact that Airglow is one of the lightest HPA ever built, and has had a flying life longer than any other. Unlike many HPA builders Airglow wasn’t built to break records or win prizes. John states that it was built ‘for delight’ and because ‘it’s fun to make things’.

Airglow first flew at 6 am on 20 July 1990 at Duxford Airfield, England. The pilot was seventeen-year-old Nick Weston. Airglow’s first performance was impressive, the aircraft flew on only the 2nd attempt, and by the end of the day had managed three more flights, the longest being about a quarter of a mile.

Over the next five years, Airglow made between 50 and 100 flights with no accidents. Typical flights would be the length of the runway, the longest being about 2 miles. In 1992 Airglow was taken to Germany and flown by Peer Frank at the Grob airfield at Mindelheim.

Pressure of work meant that after 1995 Airglow rarely flew and in 2010 it was passed on to the Royal Aeronautical Society. After an over a year in their custodianship, Airglow was brought out of retirement in 2011 and passed on to P&M Aviation. Despite being left for several years in a shed in the bottom of a garden the aircraft required little more than some oil on the moving parts before being flown again on 29 September at Kemble by Robin Kraike of P&M Aviation and Dr Bill Brookes from the Human Powered Flight Group of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Airglow flew at Lasham airfield on 13 November 2011 as part of the 50th Anniversary celebrations of Derek Piggott’s pioneering HPA flight in SUMPAC.

Team Airglow was formed in 2012 with the aim to compete in the Inaugural Icarus Cup. In August, Airglow competed in the Icarus Cup at Lasham airfield against 4 other HPA. Flying in a number of events, including duration, slalom, speed, un-assisted take-off and precision landing, Airglow won most of the individual events and the overall competition. These flights were only brought to an end when the pilots ran out of airfield.

In July 2018 Airglow again competed in the Icarus Cup, this time at Sywell airfield, where the team came second.

Airglow is currently (2020) being worked on by a small team of pilots and engineers using Airglow as a flying test bed for HPA improvements. Airglow's modular design allows refinement of different sections of the aircraft (propeller, rudder, elevator, drive chain, wings etc.) without requiring major work to the rest of the aircraft.

Company References

1. Wikipedia
2. Flight International 1 Nov 2011
3. Human Powered Flying, an on-line book by Chris Roper B. Eng, originally at http://www.humanpoweredflying.propdesigner.co.uk/html, but now only available via the Wayback Machine
4. Team Airglow – Team Airglow, all about flying the Airglow Human Powered Aircraft
5. Icarus Cup human-powered flight British human powered figure of eight (sustainableskies.org)