The Ultimate Combination Of Aero-Sports Has Been Achieved By Combining Physical Fitness Training And Recreational Aviation

When EAA reported the successful flight of the Dead Simple Human Powered Airplane (DaSH PA) on December 5th at the Half Moon Bay Airport, just south of San Francisco, California, we just had to check it out. What we found was the perfect merger of recreational aviation and a physical fitness training program.

While the EAA story piqued our interest, the group involved in developing the DaSH have also established a great blog that provides lots of videos and background regarding the project.

The blog explains the goal of the project, “Our goal is to have fun and learn while building an HPA on a budget of no more than the price of a new car by keeping the design simple and the build time to a minimum. In late 2010, we decided to start a for-fun, after hour’s project to build a human powered airplane. The goal is to do a fun build project, and learn while doing it, while keeping the overall parts cost to the price of a mid-level automobile (all the labor for design and assembly being volunteer hours).”

As for the physical fitness part of the endeavor, by visiting the blog and watching the videos you’ll see how this fits into the equation for both the pilot and ground crew.

DaSH has a wingspan of 109 feet but weighs in at just under 100 pounds, half the weight of the pilot. The first flight covered a distance of 764 feet in 37 seconds, and was described by chief engineer and test pilot Alec Proudfoot as “fantastic.”

“It flew a lot easier and handled great,” he said. “A bit of PIO (pilot induced oscillation) in the middle of the flight as I sorted out the handling.” The flight was cut short when a flange on the vertical tail mount failed, but the landing was uneventful and the damage has since been repaired.

“We're very happy with how this first flight went, a long one for a brand new HPA, and we're looking forward to flying again soon,” Proudfoot concluded.

At a recent and ANN staff meeting, ANN CEO and Editor-In-Chief, Jim Campbell, brought up the proposal that an ANN project like this might bring the staff closer together and make it easier to pass a stress test. However, when a staff member pointed out that we already receive a daily stress test and that Jim himself is the only qualified test pilot on the staff, the suggestion was tabled and the donuts were consumed.

The blog link given below is a must visit.

(Image from the dashpa blog)

FMI: www. dashpa.blogspot.com/