AA Takes Flight: Doug Patterson and Jerry Hewett’s Man-Powered Flying Machine
Douglas Patterson has very kindly donated to the AA Archives a set of drawings and photographs related to his infamous 1973/4 AA project (undertaken with fellow student Jerry Hewitt) to produce a prototype vehicle for man-powered flight…
According to Douglas’ AA Fourth Year end of term report “the numerous and unfamiliar problems presented by this [project] have been tackled with enormous energy and ingenuity, which has led to the near completion of a prototype which will be flight tested later this summer. They have throughout sorted out the best advice for all the various aspects of the design, and it is a measure of their method of working that their original certainty based on blind optimism has been survived by a real confidence in the original concept and its chances of success…”
A professional racing cyclist was hired and flight briefly achieved…
