On The Wings of Mythology

By Christine Gorman

The plane was formed of space-age plastics, but its mission was inspired by ancient legend. The goal: to see whether man could fly under his own power across 74 miles of Aegean waters, much as a mythological Greek named Daedalus once escaped his island prison on Crete by fashioning wax and feathers into wings and soaring to freedom. Last week, in a historic attempt to re-create that flight, a team led by engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology succeeded in bringing the myth back to life. For an arduous 3 hr. 54 min., Kanellos Kanellopoulos, 31, Greek Olympic cyclist and 14-time national champion, pedaled a 70-lb. plane dubbed Daedalus 88 from Crete to a crash landing just off the island of Santorini. Said the wet but beaming pilot: "Everything went like clockwork. I didn't feel at all tired."

The project was conceived in the late 1970s by John Langford, then a student at M.I.T. and now a researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Va. His dream took the combined brains and brawn of 36 engineers, students, historians, physiologists and athletes -- and nearly three years -- to realize. Like the ultralight craft Gossamer Albatross, which crossed the English Channel in 1979, Daedalus uses human energy and a pair of pedals to drive its propellers. The craft was designed and constructed specifically to challenge Albatross's records for both duration (2 hr. 40 min.) and straight- line distance (22.3 miles). To achieve this, the M.I.T. team built a gearbox with a 2-to-3 ratio instead of using a standard bicycle chain to transmit pedal power to the 11-ft. propeller. In addition, Aeronautical Engineer Mark Drela designed an extra-thin wing that provides 30% more aerodynamic lift than stumpier conventional wings. The team chose a strong, lightweight graphite compound to mold the plane's hollow, dime-thick spine.

In extensive preflight tests, Ethan Nadel, a physiologist at Yale Medical School, verified that the demands placed on the pilot -- the equivalent of running two marathons back to back -- would not exceed the limits of human endurance. Since the wingspan measures 112 ft. and the plane flies just 15 ft. above the ocean waves, even a second's pause would result in a quick dunking. To keep the human engine from sputtering, Nadel, with the Shaklee vitamin company, developed a lemon-flavored cocktail of energy-rich glucose, water and a blend of salts to nourish the pilot throughout the flight. In addition, Daedalus' team of five pilot-athletes staggered their training schedules, each of them bicycling an average of 450 miles a week so that one of them would be in peak physical form whenever the go-ahead for the flight came.

For a while it seemed that moment would never come. Blustery winds forced the attempt's cancellation for three weeks. The local people sympathized with the Amerikanakia but told them they were attempting the impossible. Even the team's most optimistic members began to wonder what would happen if they did take off. After all, hadn't they brought three planes with them, just in case?

Eventually, however, the gods smiled on the ambitious endeavor. The rosy- fingered dawn that broke over the Greek air force base at Heraklion last Saturday was accompanied by only the merest zephyrs, perfect flight weather for Daedalus. Temperatures were mild, in the high 60s, ensuring that Kanellopoulos would not burn himself out during the long flight. By 3 a.m., most members of the team were awake. Some made last-minute checks of the weather, while others gently assembled the spindly pink-silver-and-white plane and carried it to the runway. At 7:06 Kanellopoulos eased his 156-lb. frame into the cockpit and began pedaling down the tarmac. "I was expecting the takeoff to be horrible," he recalls. "But it was great with the tail winds that we had."

Once in the air, the young pilot maneuvered Daedalus 88 with a stubby metal joystick on the floor to his right. To decrease the drag on their sprawling invention, the plane's designers had dispensed with the hinged ailerons on the following edges of the wings that normally make turning easier. As a result, Daedalus responded sluggishly, to the stick's movements, making it more difficult for Kanellopoulos to steer a straight course.

Escorted by a small flotilla that included a Greek navy torpedo boat and two coast guard vessels, the champion cyclist kept in constant radio contact with the M.I.T. command crew. He advised them of his physical condition every 15 minutes, and they reported changes in wind velocity and direction. At about 11 a.m., just 30 ft. off the beach at Santorini, a strong head wind buffeted Kanellopoulos as he tried to land. First the tail broke off and then the wing. Next thing the pilot-athlete knew, he was swimming toward shore, where an enthusiastic mob surged forward to greet him. Champagne corks popped. Kanellopoulos good-naturedly signed autographs on the broken bits and pieces of Daedalus' wing. And the crowd had a new Greek hero to celebrate.

With reporting by Sam Allis and Mirka Gondicas/Heraklion