On June 12, 1979, pilot Bryan Allen pedaled pioneering designer Paul MacCready's 70-pound Gossamer Albatross from a runway near Folkstone, Kent, across the channel to the French coastline. The flight took two hours and 49 minutes.
The Albatross was developed in California test flights at Shafter, Long Beach and Harper dry lake in the MacCready, who founded AeroVironment Inc. of Monrovia, had earlier built the first fully capable human-powered flying machine, the Gossamer Condor. He died in 2007 at age 81.The Gossamer Albatross is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.
