Students take off on flight of fancy

Los Altos only high school in U.S. trying to make human powered airplane

BY ANISSA VICENTE
Staff Writer

This is a big deal.

With a 100-ft. wing span and 35-ft. long body, the Grasshopper is big indeed.

Los Altos High School students in Hacienda Heights hope that a 70-pound assortment of aluminum tubing, foam, double sided tape, clamps, carbon fiber and balsa wood will become their most ambitious project yet: a human powered airplane.

No other high school in the nation has tried to make this project fly, but Bob Franz's engineering technology students want to try.

"We know some Japanese university students have done it, some MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) students tried and Boeing did too," said team leader Michael Ni, 18. Ni graduated this year and will attend the University of Pennsylvania in September.

Franz said his students have three goals: make the plane fly; make it fly further; and then make it turn.

"They're not going to give up until all that happens," Franz said.

Incoming senior Alen Lin, 17, will take over team leader reins from Ni this year. "It's too late to turn back now," he said, ''we've come this far."



About 20 students started on the project a year and a half ago. They researched the history of human powered flight, exchanging e-mails with Boeing engineers and meeting with Paul McCready in Monrovia.

McCready, 75, and a Caltech graduate, heads Aerovironment Inc., a company that builds energy-efficient planes. McCready built one of the first human-powered planes, the Gossamer Condor, which first flew in 1979.

Los Altos students modeled the $7,000 Grasshopper after McCready's Condor, except the Grasshopper has its propeller in front and a rudder in the back. The Condor had its propeller in the back and its rudder in front.

Even with that inspiration, building a human-powered plane is 10 times harder than building a solar car, because of the requirements of flight, students said.

Their first prototype was too heavy. Other models fell apart at the slightest breeze. The Grasshopper is fragile, but strong.

"We attached piano and polyester strings to give the plane all-around

tension," graduate Danny Huang said. Like Ni, Huang is spending his summer working on the Grasshopper. The plane will also be wrapped in Mylar, which will be ironed on most parts.

"We picked Mylar because it's strong, light and transparent, so we can see where things go wrong or break," graduate Arthur Chang said.

These days, students are working to meet a self-imposed deadline for the Grasshopper's first test flight. The Federal Aviation Administration helped them find space at the San Bernardino Airport and students hope to go there by the end of July.

“If all goes well, the Grasshopper will take to the skies in early August.” Ni said they hope the plane will fly 5 feet high for 100 yards, or the length of a football field.

Juniors Joyce Chen or Nancy Chiu will pilot the Grasshopper. Chen or Chiu has to pedal the plane at 8 mph before it can take off. Both are training everyday on a LifeCycle that measures the power they expend. Grasshopper's pilot has to produce 250 watts or one-third horsepower for the plane to take off.



Students are also monitoring the weather at the airport everyday.

"We have to have zero wind because the plane has no steering and even the slightest wind can move the plane," Chen said.

Chen said the toughest sacrifice she's had to make is sleep.

Franz added that students have been as dedicated to this project as they were for Los Altos' other Regional Occupational Program projects, like its electric and solar cars.

But the hardest part about the student-run project wasn't the minute calculations or labor-intensive parts. It was naming the plane. The group named the plane the Grasshopper instead of, say, the Eagle because of the way they expect it to fly.

"An eagle soars, but a grasshopper makes periodic flights; it sort of flies, then stops, flies, then stops," Ni said. "Naming the plane was the hardest part about the whole thing."

The $7,000 project got help from local industries for materials. The Youth Science Center in Hacienda Heights donated $1,000; a resident gave $2,000; and many local banks anted up with donations of their own. Ni said their families and friends also helped support the project. The team still needs help transporting 20-foot by 9-foot plane sections to San Bernardino Airport and any help is appreciated.

"We don't think we can't do anything," Ni said. "We've gotten so far in this and it's an opportunity of a lifetime."

Other students in the Grasshopper team are Jennifer Chou, Nelson Lee, Dave Sadamoto and Edward Song.