Staruk is a 22-year-old aerospace engineering graduate student at the University of Maryland from Worcester, Mass. He is part of a team of 50 engineering students who built a lightweight human-powered helicopter named Gamera, and launched it for four seconds on Thursday. The students think they may have set a world record for human-powered helicopter flight. But they fell short of winning a $250,000 prize from the American Helicopter Society. Tell me how long has your team been working on the project and how did the idea come about?
This project has been going on for a few years — three years. [Engineering school Dean Darryll Pines] had heard about the Sikorsky Prize, which was offered decades ago, and thought if anyone can do it, Maryland can. So we decided to take a shot at it.
Tell me about that prize and the records you were trying to break?
The prize is offered by the American Helicopter Society and it’s a big pot of money for whoever is the first person or team to build a [human-powered] helicopter that can fly to the height of three meters, which is about 10 feet, and hover for a total of a minute. It’s pretty difficult to do. Right now, we’re aiming to get that minute mark first, and then we’re going to worry about the three-meter part … by August, we’ll get that minute, I’m hoping.
You think you broke a record?
Yeah, the National Aeronautical Association record, which is the governing body, for the longest flight for human-powered helicopter. And I believe because the pilot was a woman we might get a separate record for that, too.
So is the whole team behind trying this again?
There was some question of it from some people, but after our success and after we’ve proved what we can do, I expect to get support going forward.
Alex Papper
