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Aviation giant dies

A giant loss..

A giant loss for aviation....

I had the pleasure of hearing Paul speak at two or three soaring conventions, and he was a gifted public speaker, as well as an innovative designer.

He was the first US world glider champion in 1956 in France, but apparently thunderstorm flying in the Alps on the last day turned him off sailplanes, and he never flew another glider after that... :confused:

His gliding legacy will remain with the McCready ring (aka speed to fly) that is a part of sailplane instrument panels on almost all analog variometers - and built in to the equations for digital ones... :)

A fascinating interview here... much better than any of the bios on-line...

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/mac0int-1

R.I.P.

gil A

Yes... Laird worked for him...
 
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A great loss for aviation and all of us. Also recall that he pioneered many projects dealing with surface transportation efficiency, such as Sunraycer (across Australia on solar power in 7 days - in 1987) and human powered vehicles.

From an interview about Sunraycer: "It actually was very much like sailplane flying where you go through a lot of statistical estimates and calculations about what you're going to do next because what you do now is determined somewhat by what you're going to encounter an hour or two or three hours later which can only be predicted with some inaccuracy. The whole thing was kind of fun and demanding, but as a race we were two days ahead of the next car by the time the thing was over. So it was not a close or exciting race from that standpoint."

Paul and Sunraycer
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The Vector Single
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TODR
 
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GMHE (GM Hughes Electronics)

Thanks "The other Doug"

I had forgotten about the Sunraycer. The original was in the Hughes Corporate HQ building near Loyola Marymount for many years. Hughes at that time was owned by GM who hired McCready to build the chassis, and GM Hughes Electronics designed the electronics for the racer - probably to push their Impact (dumb name) electric car.

It was an impressive machine, a nice combination of design and form...

gil A. ....I passed it when I went to the Credit Union ATM....
 
strahler13 said:
Also the winner of the human powered flight prize in the Gossamer Condor, I believe.

Mark
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Yes he won the Kremer prize for the Gossamer Condor. Then he won the second Kremer prize for a flight from England to France in the Gossamer Albatross. Later he developed solar powered aircraft. RV builder Laird Owens was involved in some of that.

Gil Alexander mentioned MacCready theory. In the 50's Paul became world soaring champion by flying according to his optimization calculations and to this day every glide calculator computer needs the MacCready number to work correctly. Roughly speaking, that number is the expected average rate of climb in the next thermal that one will use.

Remarkable individual.
 
n5lp said:
Remarkable individual.
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You are correct, sir. What an innovator.

The Vector "bicycle". The Gossamer. That race across AU. Not just aviation, all of SCIENCE has lost a pioneer.

edit: thanks for posting this, I would have read his obituary in my news aggregator and said, "Who?" This guy inspired me to tinker and futz about with things in my late teens when he ran that solar race. Love the chainring on the Vector!
 
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Paul's "CAN DO" attitude.

One thing that can be said about Mr. M. He truly understood how to optomize a design. We often refer to it in business as "killing the engineer." That is to stop changing a good design and getting on with working with what you have got. The Gossomer Condor showed how he worked within a buget, and the Gossomer Albatross showed what could happen when the scientist was allowed to run free. The highest compliment I ever saw MacCready paid was in a model aircraft magazine from the UK, don't even remember which one. The time was just after the team had won the second Karamer prize, for the channel crossing. (Which I am sure they thought would take decades rather that a couple years.) The compliment was actually in the form of a cartoon. It showed the Albatross in an unusual attitude pulling out of a loop! The caption reads "I TOLD you not to bet him a 100,000 pounds that he couldn't loop it!" It showed that even in England they recognized that this was a guy that could do almost anything when he put his mind to it. Some people leave little impact on the world, others will be missed. Paul MacCready will be missed, Godspeed.
Bill Jepson
 
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