More With Less

by Ciotti, Paul

• ISBN13: 9781893554504
• ISBN10: 1893554503
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-01
• Publisher: Encounter Books

Summary

In the 1970s a small group of unknown southern California visionaries, working independently as a result of their own whims and hobbies, developed an interest in lightweight low-powered machines. Recognising their talent, a gifted scientist and engineer named Paul MacCready subsequently pulled them together to build a plane capable of winning a long-standing prize for human powered flight. Their success in that project led to a series of even more efficient vehicles: a man-powered plane that flew the English Channel; a solar powered plane that flew from Paris to London; a solar-powered car that won a race across Australia; an 18-foot flapping wing flying replica of a pterodactyl for a Smithsonian-sponsored IMAX film; and more recently, a high-altitude unmanned solar aeroplane that, when fully operational, will stay up for six months at a time performing the same functions as orbiting satellites. Paul Ciotti tells the story of the individuals who made up this group, their inspirations and failures, their quirks and disagreements and their remarkable successes.

Author Biography

A former Los Angeles Times writer, Paul Ciotti frequently writes about technology. He lives in Southern California with his wife and two sons

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
From Rodent-Powered Aircraft to Stratospheric Satellites	p. 1
The Moral Case for Efficiency	p. 5
Alpha Males and the Twilight Club	p. 10
The Case against Elegant Engineering	p. 15
From King Bladud to the Wright Bothers	p. 17
Building Self-Confidence	p. 25
The Contest at St. Yan	p. 33
Midlife Crisis	p. 38
Man's Innate Desire to Fly	p. 44
Hang-Gliding in Southern California	p. 47
The Earth-Flip Hypothesis	p. 53
The Otto Lilienthal Meet	p. 61
Taras Kiceniuk and Icarus Ground Effect I	p. 67
How Henry Kremer Changed Paul MacCready's Life	p. 70
Lambie Luck	p. 73
A Human Test Stand	p. 82
Tales of the Mojave	p. 86
The Shafter Connection	p. 89
Reinventing the Wright Brothers	p. 92
A Turn for the Better	p. 95
The Case for Apparent Altruism	p. 102
The Channel Crossing	p. 106
Vikings versus the Emerald Isle	p. 109
Why the British Didn't Win	p. 118
Soft Energy and Lissaman's Broken Heart	p. 120
How the Oil Crisis Changed the Country	p. 122
Bob Boucher and the Eternal Plane	p. 126
From Pointoise to "a Right Proper Piss-up"	p. 135
"A Big Damn Bird Came Out of the Sky"	p. 148
Biking Through the Gene Pool	p. 160
Solar Deluge on the Bitumen	p. 171
Electric Cars and Mental Blocks	p. 179
Day of the Stratospheric Satellite	p. 184
The Engineer, the Hunter and the Bear	p. 190
Tao of the Carbon Dragon	p. 195
Saving the World 10 Percent at a Time	p. 202
Doctoral Thesis Immortality	p. 210
Exploding Biomimicry	p. 214
Why Blind People Don't Sky Dive	p. 216
The Johnny Appleseed of Ornithopters	p. 225
Acknowledgments	p. 229
Notes	p. 231
Index	p. 252
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