The AeroVelo Atlas human powered helicopter made its first flight on Tuesday August 28, 2012, as part of the AHS Igor I. Sikorsky Human Powered Helicopter Competition. Check out the video on our YouTube Channel and find out more about the AHS HPH competition at www.vtol.org/hph.

As described previously in AHS’s Vertiflite magazine, AeroVelo is a collection of students and professionals working on lightweight, efficient designs; core members of the team began in 2006 with the founding of the Human-Powered Vehicle Design Team at the University of Toronto.

AeroVelo is led by Dr. Todd Reichert and Cameron Robertson, both graduates of Toronto. In August 2010, AeroVelo’s first project made aviation history by achieving the age-old dream of bird-like flight – the world’s first human-powered ornithopter, the Snowbird. The team then focused on the design of highspeed streamlined bicycles. In 2011, AeroVelo smashed the college land speed record by traveling 72.6 mph (116.9 km/hr) at the Human-Powered Speed Challenge in Battle Mountain, Nevada.

AeroVelo is now focused on the AHS HPH Competition. Dr. Reichert is the project manager and pilot, and Cameron Robertson is the chief structural designer. The project team has made extensive use of multidisciplinary optimization, with the main design code written by Reichert and Robertson. Their Atlas design is also a cruciform quadrotor design, based on Yuri-1. It is being designed and constructed at the Great Lakes Gliding Club in Tottenham, Ontario, just outside of Toronto. AeroVelo recently ran a successful fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.com, and has been primarily supported by corporate sponsors, research grants and individual donors. Preliminary design and analysis for Atlas began in late 2011, with the focused design begun in January. Construction was begun in May.

AHS congratulates the AeroVelo on becoming the third active HPH competitor to fly!